Jamie Potter and The Chamber of Secrets
by Epic Hero Laugh
Summary: Jamie's second year is complete. I wrote hard, so read and review hard please. Go my beloved minion- i mean readers and enter the hilarious worl of Jamie Rose POtter -HarryPottersTwinSister :oD
1. Chapter 1

SEQUEL!

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Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive. Mr. Vernon Dursley had been woken in the early hours of the morning by a loud, hooting noise from his nephew Harry's room.

"Third time this week!" he roared across the table. "If you can't control that owl, it'll have to go!"

Harry tried, yet again, to explain.

"She's bored," he said. "She's used to flying around outside. If I could just let her out at night -"

"Do I look stupid?" snarled Uncle Vernon, a bit of fried egg dangling from his bushy mustache.

"I know what'll happen if that owl's let out."

He exchanged dark looks with his wife, Petunia.

Harry tried to argue back but his words were drowned by a long, loud belch from the Dursleys' son, Dudley.

"I want more bacon."

"There's more in the frying pan, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia, turning misty eyes on her massive son. "We must build you up while we've got the chance… I don't like the sound of that school food…"

"Nonsense, Petunia, I never went hungry when I was at Smeltings," said Uncle Vernon heartily. "Dudley gets enough, don't you, son?"

Dudley, who was so large his bottom drooped over either side of the kitchen chair, grinned and turned to Jamie.

"Pass the frying pan."

"You've forgotten the magic word," said Harry and Jamie in unison.

The effect of this simple sentence on the rest of the family was incredible: Dudley gasped and fell off his chair with a crash that shook the whole kitchen; Mrs. Dursley gave a small scream and clapped her hands to her mouth; Mr. Dursley jumped to his feet, veins throbbing in his temples.

"I meant 'please'!" said Harry quickly. "I didn't mean —"

"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU," thundered his uncle, spraying spit over the table, "ABOUT SAYING THE 'M' WORD IN OUR HOUSE?"

"But I —"

"HOW DARE YOU THREATEN DUDLEY!" roared Uncle Vernon, pounding the table with his fist. Idiot.

"I just —"

"I WARNED YOU! I WILL NOT TOLERATE MENTION OF YOUR ABNORMALITY UNDER THIS ROOF!"

Harry stared from his purple-faced uncle to his pale aunt, who was trying to heave Dudley to his feet.

"All right," said Harry, "all right…"

Uncle Vernon sat back down, breathing like a winded rhinoceros and watching Harry closely out of the corners of his small, sharp eyes.

Ever since they had come home for the summer holidays, Uncle Vernon had been treating them like a bomb that might go off at any moment, because Harry Potter wasn't a normal boy, and Jamie Potter wasn't a normal girl.

Jamie missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomachache. She missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts, her classes (though definitely not Snape, the Potions master), the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleeping in her four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on broomsticks) She just wanted to hold the broom..

All Jamie's and Harry's spellbooks, his wand, a random stick Jamie had found, robes, cauldron, and top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick _sigh_ had been locked in Jamie's closet by Uncle Vernon the instant they had come home. What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place on the House Quidditch team because he hadn't practiced all summer?

What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school without any of his homework done? Or Jamie? The Dursleys were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins), and as far as they were concerned, having a witch and wizard in the family was a matter of deepest shame. Uncle Vernon had even padlocked Harry's owl, Hedwig, inside her cage, to stop her from carrying messages to anyone in the wizarding world.

Harry and Jamie thankfully looked nothing like the rest of the family.

Uncle Vernon was large and neckless, with an enormous black mustache; Aunt Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond, pink, and porky. Harry, on the other hand, was small and skinny, with brilliant green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy. He wore round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped scar.

Jamie looked however the hell she wanted to.

The Dursleys hadn't even remembered that today happened to be the twins' twelfth birthday.

Of course, his hopes hadn't been high; they'd never given him a real present, let alone a cake — but to ignore it completely…

At that moment, Uncle Vernon cleared his throat importantly and said, "Now, as we all know, today is a very important day."

Harry looked up, hardly daring to believe it. Ahhh, Harry, Harry, Harry.

"This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career," said Uncle Vernon.

Jamie went back to her toast, dumping peanut butter on it.. Of course, she thought bitterly, Uncle Vernon was talking about the stupid dinner party. He'd been talking of nothing else for two weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon was hoping to get a huge order from him (Uncle Vernon's company made drills).

"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," said Uncle Vernon. "We should all be in position at eight o'clock. Petunia, you will be —?"

"In the lounge," said Aunt Petunia promptly, "waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."

"Good, good. And Dudley?"

"I'll be waiting to open the door." Dudley put on a foul, simpering smile. "May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?"

"They'll love him!" cried Aunt Petunia rapturously.

"Excellent, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on Harry. "And you?"

"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," said Harry tonelessly.

"You?"

"In the cupboard under the stairs, pretending I don't exist."

"Exactly," said Uncle Vernon nastily. "I will lead them into the lounge, introduce you, Petunia, and pour them drinks. At eight-fifteen —"

"I'll announce dinner," said Aunt Petunia.

"And, Dudley, you'll say —"

"May I take you through to the dining room, Mrs. Mason?" said Dudley, offering his fat arm to an invisible woman.

"My perfect little gentleman!" sniffed Aunt Petunia.

"And you?" said Uncle Vernon viciously to Harry.

"I'll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," said Harry dully.

"Precisely."

"NO schedule changes for me." Jamie said.

"Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Petunia, any ideas?"

"Vernon tells me you're a wonderful golfer, Mr. Mason… Do tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason…"

"Perfect… Dudley?"

"How about —'We had to write an essay about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you.'"

This was too much for both Aunt Petunia Jamie, and Harry. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and hugged her son, while Harry and Jamie ducked under the table so they wouldn't see them laughing.

"And you, boy, girl?"

Harry fought to keep his face straight as he emerged.

"I'll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," he said.

"same in the cupboard."

"Too right, you will." said Uncle Vernon forcefully. "The Masons don't know anything about you and it's going to stay that way.

When dinner's over, you take Mrs. Mason back to the lounge for coffee, Petunia, and I'll bring the subject around to drills. With any luck, I'll have the deal signed and sealed before the news at ten. Be shopping for a vacation home in Majorca this time tomorrow."

Jamie couldn't feel too excited about this. She didn't think the Dursleys would like her or Harry any better in Majorca than they did on Privet Drive.

"Right — I'm off into town to pick up the dinner jackets for Dudley and me. And you two," he snarled at Harry. "You stay out of your aunt's way while she's cleaning."

Harry and Jamie left through the back door. It was a brilliant, sunny day. He crossed the lawn, slumped down on the garden bench, and was about to sing happy birthday under his breath when Jamie started singing it really loudly.

"Happy birthday to me… happy birthday to you… Happy Birthday to the Potters, Happy Birthday to us."

But this didn't change the fact that there were no cards, no presents, and they would be spending the evening pretending not to exist.

Neither Ron nor Hermione had written to them all summer, even though Ron had said he was going to ask Harry to come and stay.

Countless times, Harry had been on the point of unlocking Hedwig's cage by magic and sending her to Ron and Hermione with a letter, but it wasn't worth the risk. Underage wizards weren't allowed to use magic outside of school. Harry hadn't told the Dursleys this; he knew it was only their terror that he might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking him in the cupboard under the stairs with his wand and broomstick.

For the first couple of weeks back, Jamie had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under her breath and watching Dudley tearing out of the room as fast as his fat legs would carry him. But the long silence from Ron and Hermione had made them feel so cut off from the magical world that even taunting Dudley had lost its appeal — and now Ron and Hermione had forgotten their birthday.

"I know what day it is," sang Dudley, waddling toward him.

"What?" said Harry, not taking his eyes off the hedge.

"I know what day it is," Dudley repeated, coming right up to him.

"Well done," said Jamie. "So you've finally learned the days of the week."

"Today's your birthday," sneered Dudley. "How come you haven't got any cards? Haven't you even got friends at that freak place?"

"Better not let your mum hear you talking about my school," said Harry coolly.

Dudley hitched up his trousers, which were slipping down his fat bottom.

"Why're you staring at the hedge?" he said suspiciously.

"I'm trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire," said Harry.

Dudley stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his fat face.

"You c-can't — Dad told you you're not to do m-magic — he said he'll chuck you out of the house — and you haven't got anywhere else to go — you haven't got any friends to take you —"

"Jiggery pokery!" said Harry in a fierce voice. "Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly —"

Jamie waved a stick at him" abracadabra" she said.

"MUUUUUUM!" howled Dudley, tripping over his feet as he dashed back toward the house. "MUUUUM! She's doing you know what!"

They paid dearly for the moment of fun. As neither Dudley nor the hedge was in any way hurt, Aunt Petunia knew he hadn't really done magic, but he still had to duck as she aimed a heavy blow at his head with the soapy frying pan.

Then she gave them work to do, with the promise they wouldn't eat again until they'd finished.

While Dudley lolled around watching and eating ice cream, Harry and Jamie cleaned the windows, washed the car, mowed the lawn, trimmed the flowerbeds, pruned and watered the roses, and repainted the garden bench.

The sun blazed overhead, burning the back of his neck. Jamie knew she shouldn't have risen to Dudley's bait, but she always backed Harry, and Harry had…

Wish they could see famous Potter twins now, she thought savagely as she spread manure on the flower beds, her back aching, sweat running down her face.

It was half past seven in the evening when at last, exhausted, she heard Aunt Petunia calling them.

"Get in here! And walk on the newspaper!"

Harry moved gladly into the shade of the gleaming kitchen. On top of the fridge stood tonight's pudding: a huge mound of whipped cream and sugared violets. A loin of roast pork was sizzling in the oven.

"Eat quickly! The Masons will be here soon!" snapped Aunt Petunia, pointing to four slices of bread and a two lumps of cheese on the kitchen table. She was already wearing a salmon-pink cocktail dress.

Harry washed his hands and bolted down his pitiful supper. Jamie followed. The moment he had finished, Aunt Petunia whisked away his plate. "Upstairs! Cupboard! Hurry!"

Jamie ran into the cupboard and used a flashlight to look through the photo book, searching for the man. At last she found him…


	2. Escape to the Burrow

LOL don't own Harry Potter. If I did, there would be about ten more books on the next gens life, or even people in America.

Jamie will talk like an American since I'm on and I'm too lazy to write like I'm British. My catchphrase is legit I'm too lazy. You ask my bff and cuz what I say all the time she'll go

Noo, I'm too lazy. She means it as an answer and as applying to herself. :D

I love D smileys since my name starts with D.

There was a huge crash outside Jamie's cupboard.

There were screams from the dining room. Jamie waited quietly staining to hear what was going on, but it was to chaotic.

Uncle Vernon was suddenly framed in the doorway. "You're in the room with Harry, get up. No sounds."

And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Jamie upstairs.

Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on the window.

He himself fitted a cat-flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day. They let them out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, they were locked in the room around the clock.

Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting,

and Jamie couldn't see any way out of the situation. she lay on his bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and wondered miserably what was going to happen to them.

What was the good of magicking themselves out of his room if Hogwarts would expel them for doing it? Yet life at Privet Drive had reached an all-time low. Now that the Dursleys knew they weren't going to wake up as fruit bats, they had lost their only weapon. Dobby might have saved Harry from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, they'd probably starve to death anyway.(Harry had filled Jamie in)

The cat-flap rattled and Aunt Petunias hand appeared, pushing two bowls of canned soup into the room. Jamie, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it. The soup was stone-cold, but she drank half of it in one gulp along Harry. She donated to Hedwig and Des, and finished the rest.

Supposing they were still alive in another four weeks, what would happen if they didn't turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why they hadn't come back? Would they be able to make the Dursleys let them go?

The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, mind spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Harry fell into an uneasy sleep, and Jamie followed soon after. She woke to a bright light flashing in her face, and A flying car with Ron in the backseat pulled up at the window. Jamie woke up Harry and they stared open mouthed at the Car.

"Ron, how did you —? What the —?" breathed Harry.

Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked _in midair_.

Grinning at jamie from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers, Jamie's heart gave a leap at the sight of George in the passenger's seat.

"All right, Jamie?" asked George.

"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you been answering my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles —"

"It wasn't me — and how did he know?"

"He works for the Ministry," said Ron. "You _know _we're not supposed to do spells outside school —"

"You should talk," said Harry, staring at the floating car.

"Oh, this doesn't count," said Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, _we _didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with —"

"I told you, I didn't — but it'll take too long to explain now — look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the Ministry'll think that's the second spell I've done in three days, so —"

"Stop gibbering," said Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."

"But you can't magic me out either —"

"We don't need to," said Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me." Excellent.

"Tie that around the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Harry.

"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," said Harry as he tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.

"Don't worry," said Fred, "and stand back."

Harry moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. Jamie had started grabbing the stuff in the room up, bringing a copy of Eragon along with the photobook and everything else.( A/N extremely important for later books. You can be an author of one of Jamie's schoolbooks if you guess right.)

The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Harry ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoisted them up into the car. Jamie listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom.

When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred reversed as close as possible to Harry's window.

"Get in," Ron said.

"But all my Hogwarts stuff — my wand — my broomstick —"

"Where is it?"

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room —"

"No problem," said George from the front passenger seat. "Out of the way, Jamie."

Fred and George climbed catlike through the window into Harry's room. You had to hand it to them, thought Jamie, as George took an ordinary hairpin from his pocket and started to pick the lock, and she watched carefully, filing it away for later use.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," said Fred, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

There was a small click and the door swung open.

"So — we'll get your trunk — you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron," whispered George.

"Watch out for the bottom stair — it creaks," Harry whispered back as the twins disappeared onto the dark landing.

Harry dashed around his room, collecting his things and passing them out of the window to Ron, which Jamie had already done. Then they went to help Fred and George heave the trunks up the stairs. Jamie heard Uncle Vernon cough.

At last, panting, they reached the landing, then carried the trunk through Harry's room to the open window. Fred climbed back into the car to pull with Ron, and Harry, Jamie, and George pushed from the bedroom side. Inch by inch, the trunk slid through the window. Jamie's followed.

Uncle Vernon coughed again.

"A bit more," panted Fred, who was pulling from inside the car. "One good push —"

Harry and George threw their shoulders against the trunk and it slid out of the window into the back seat of the car.

"Okay, let's go," George whispered.

But as Harry climbed onto the windowsill after Jamie there came a sudden loud screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of Uncle Vernon's voice.

"THAT RUDDY OWL!"

"I've forgotten Hedwig!"

Harry tore back across the room as the landing light clicked on — he snatched up Hedwig's cage, dashed to the window, and passed it out to Ron.

He was scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when Uncle Vernon hammered on the unlocked door — and it crashed open.

For a split second, Uncle Vernon stood framed in the doorway; then he let out a bellow like an angry bull and dived at Harry, grabbing him by the ankle.

Ron, Jamie, Fred, and George seized Harry's arms and pulled as hard as they could.

"Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

But the Weasleys and Jamie gave a gigantic tug and Harry's leg slid out of Uncle Vernon's grasp — Harry was in the car — he'd slammed the door shut —

"Put your foot down, Fred!" yelled Ron, and the car shot suddenly toward the moon.

Jamie couldn't believe it — she was free. She rolled down the window, the night air whipping her hair, especially amazing with her head out completely, and looked back at the shrinking rooftops of Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were all hanging, dumbstruck, out of Harry's window.

"See you next summer!" Harry yelled.

The Weasleys and Jamieroared with laughter and Harry settled back in his seat, grinning from ear to ear.

"Let Hedwig out," he told Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages."

George handed the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.

"So — what's the story, you two?" said Ron impatiently. "What's been happening?"

Harry told them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Harry and the fiasco of the violet pudding. There was a long, shocked silence when he had finished.

"Very fishy," said Fred finally.

"Definitely dodgy" agreed George. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"I don't think he could," said Harry. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."

Jamie saw Fred and George look at each other.

"What, you think he was lying to me?" said Harry.

"Well," said Fred, "put it this way — house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"

"Yes," said Harry, Jamie, and Ron together, instantly, and a triplet moment.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry explained. "He hates me."

"And me," Jamie volunteered.

"Draco Malfoy?" said George, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Must be, it's not a very common name, is it?" said Harry.

"I've heard Dad talking about him," said George. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"And when You-Know-Who disappeared," said Fred, craning around to look at Harry, "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung — Dad reckons he was right in You- Know-Who's inner circle."

Jamie had heard these rumours about Malfoy's family before, and they didn't surprise her at all. Malfoy made Dudley Dursley look like a kind, thoughtful, and sensitive boy…

"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house-elf…" said Harry.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," said Fred.

"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," said George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house…"

Jamie was silent. Judging by the fact that Draco Malfoy usually had the best of everything, his family was rolling in wizard gold; she could just see Malfoy strutting around a large manor house. Sending the family servant to stop Harry from going back to Hogwarts also sounded exactly like the sort of thing Malfoy would do. Had Harry been stupid to take Dobby seriously? Jamie wasn't sure but if so. Twist and crack would go a certain blonds neck. Waahaahaahaaa.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," said Ron.

"I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first —"

"Who's Errol?"

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes —"

"_Who?" _

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," said Fred from the front.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," said Ron. "Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," said George, frowning. "And he _has _been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room… I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge… 'Jamie snorted'

You're driving too far west, Fred," he added, pointing at a compass on the dashboard. Fred twiddled the steering wheel.

"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" said Jamie and Harry together, both guessing the answer.

"Er, no," said Ron, "he had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it."

"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?"

"He works in the most boring department," said Ron. "The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."

"The _what_?"

"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare — Dad was working overtime for weeks."

"What happened?"

"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose. Dad was going frantic — it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office — and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up —"

"But your dad — this car —"

Fred laughed. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided _our _house he'd have to put himself under arrest.

It drives Mum mad."

"That's the main road," said George, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes… Just as well, it's getting light…"

A faint pinkish glow was visible along the horizon to the east.

Fred brought the car lower, and Jamie saw a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.

"We're a little way outside the village," said George. "Ottery St. Catchpole."

Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.

"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Jamie looked out for the first time at Ron's house.

It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic (which Jamie reminded herself, it probably was). Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, THE BURROW. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.

"Why do I get the feeling you've driven before?" Jamie asked wryly.

"NO clue," smirked George.

"It's not much," said Ron.

"It's _wonderful_," said Harry happily, Jamie thought of Privet Drive and wholeheartedly agreed.

They got out of the car.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," said Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and Jamie and no one need ever know we flew the car."

"Right," said Ron. "Come on, Harry, Jamie, I sleep at the — at the top —"

Ron had gone a nasty greenish colour, his eyes fixed on the house.

The other three wheeled around.

Mrs. Weasley was marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a saber-toothed tiger.

"_Ah_, "said Fred.

"Oh, dear," said George.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.

"_So_," she said.

"Morning, Mum," said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to —"

All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone — could have crashed — out of my mind with worry — did you care? — never, as long as I've lived — you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy —"

"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!"

yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have _died_, you could have been _seen_, you could have lost your father his _job _—"

It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Harry, who backed away. Mrs. Weasley had an aura around her that screamed 'I'm a mother'. It was warm, homey tones, but there was a sharp edge on a couple parts, showing complete control over her children.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry and Jamie, dears," she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."

She turned and walked back into the house, Jamie followed and Harry, after a nervous glance at Ron, who nodded encouragingly, followed her.

The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle, and Harry sat down on the edge of his seat next to Jamie, who was also looking around. She had never been in a wizard house before.

The clock on the wall opposite him had only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like _Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens_, and _You're late_.

Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like _Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts _— _It's Magic! _And unless Harry's ears were deceiving him, the old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was "Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck."

Mrs. Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like "don't know _what _you were thinking of," and "_never _would have believed it."

"I don't blame _you_, dear," she assured Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate.

"Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really," (she was now adding three fried eggs to his plate)

"flying an illegal car halfway across the country — anyone could have seen you —"

She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.

"It was _cloudy_, Mum!" said Fred.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"They were starving him, Mum!" said George.

"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.

"Not to alarm you, Mrs. Weasley, but I'm not sure we could have ever completely recovered if left until Friday," said Jamie politely, exaggerating a lot to help Ron George and Fred.

Mrs. Weasley stopped and stared at Jamie, about to say something when there was a diversion in the form of a small, redheaded figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.

"Ginny," said Ron in an undertone to Harry and Jamie. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer."

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry," Fred said with a grin,

but he caught his mother's eye and bent his face over his plate without another word. Nothing more was said until all four plates were clean, which took a surprisingly short time.

"_Blimey_, I'm tired," yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. "I think I'll go to bed and —"

"You will not," snapped Mrs. Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again —"

"Oh, Mum —"

"And you two," she said, glaring at Ron and Fred. "You can go up to bed, dear," she added to Harry and Jamie. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car —"

But Jamie and Harry, who both felt wide awake, said quickly at the same time, "I'll help Ron. I've never seen a de-gnoming —"

"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject —"

And she pulled a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece. George groaned.

"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden —"

Jamie looked at the cover of Mrs. Weasley's book. Written across it in fancy gold letters were the words _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_.

There was a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. As always in the wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, who Jamie supposed was Gilderoy Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all. He was good-looking, but had a stupid air about him, sort of like the epitome of Dumb Blonde.(A/N No offense to blondes. I have really smart friends who are blonde) Mrs. Weasley beamed down at him.

"Oh, he is marvelous," she said. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book…"

"Mum _fancies _him," said Fred, in a very audible whisper.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," said Mrs. Weasley, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."

Yawning and grumbling, the Weasleys slouched outside with Potters behind them. The garden was large, and in Jamie's eyes, almost exactly what a garden should be. The Dursleys wouldn't have liked it — there were plenty of weeds, and the grass needed cutting — but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, plants Jamie had never seen spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs The only problem was an absence of flowers.

"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron they crossed the lawn.

"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," said Ron, bent double with his head in a peony bush, "like fat little Santa Clauses with fishing rods…" Jamie snorted.

There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered, and Ron straightened up. "_This _is a gnome," he said grimly.

"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" squealed the gnome.

It was certainly nothing like Santa Claus. It was small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. Ron held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside down.

"This is what you have to do," he said. He raised the gnome above his head ("Gerroff me!") and started to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Jamie's face, Ron added, "It doesn't _hurt _them —you've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnome holes." Had anyone asked a gnome? Only a gnome could tell you, and Jamie doubted people had asked. She and Harry decided to just drop them over the hedge, but the gnome simultaneously bit them, and Harry and Jamie were practically synchronized with

Owww(Harry)

That hurts like hell(Jamie)

Two breaths sucked in at once, and two gnomes flying fifty feet across the yard later, Harry and Jamie learned not to feel sorry for gnomes.

The air was soon thick with flying gnomes.

"See, they're not too bright," said George, seizing five or six gnomes at once. "The moment they know the de-gnoming's going on they storm up to have a look. You'd think they'd have learned by now just to stay put."

Soon, the crowd of gnomes in the field started walking away in a straggling line, their little shoulders hunched.

"They'll be back," said Ron as they watched the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field. "They love it here… Dad's too soft with them; he thinks they're funny…"

Just then, the front door slammed.

"He's back!" said George. "Dad's home!"

They hurried through the garden and back into the house.

Mr. Weasley was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He was a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he had was as red as any of his children's. He was wearing long green robes, which were dusty and travel-worn. His aura screamed father, and Jamie, seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley together, felt a pang of longing.

"What a night," he mumbled, groping for the teapot as they all sat down around him. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned…"

Mr. Weasley took a long gulp of tea and sighed.

"Find anything, Dad?" said Fred eagerly.

"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," yawned Mr. Weasley. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness…"

"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" said George.

"Just Muggle-baiting," sighed Mr. Weasley. "Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it.. Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking — they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face… But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe —"

"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"

Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.

"C-cars, Molly, dear?"

"Yes, Arthur, cars," said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while _really _he was enchanting it to make it _fly_."

Mr. Weasley blinked.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if — er — he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth… There's a loophole in the law, you'll find… As long as he wasn't _intending _to fly the car, the fact that the car _could _fly wouldn't —"

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Jamie Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

"Harry? Jamie?" said Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry and Jamie who?"

He looked around, saw Harry, and jumped.

"Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about —"

"_Your sons flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" _shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"

"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Did it go all right?

I — I mean," he faltered as sparks flew from Mrs. Weasley's eyes, "that — that was very wrong, boys — very wrong indeed…"

"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Harry as Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom. Jamie, you can stick with Ginny." Jamie had been looking forward to really meeting Ginny.

They slipped out of the kitchen and down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, a door stood ajar. "Ginny's" Ron whispered, and Jamie went in. The room was small and pretty, very feminine. The sheets were a pale pink. A pale pink Weasley sweater was draped across a chair, and the curtains were frilly.

"Hi, I'm Jamie."

"I'm Ginny," Ginny said. She was much more confident in her home environment, or maybe it was just Harry.

"I would really love to become your good friend Ginny, you seem really nice," Jamie said sincerely.

Ginny stared at her for two seconds before saying" I'd love to be your friend too."

The two redheads smiled at each other before Jamie turned to a cot on the floor, laid down, and Ginny climbed into her bed and shut off the light.

"Goodnight new friend Ginny."

"Goodnight new friend Jamie."


	3. Life at the burrow

Life at the Burrow was as different as possible from life on Privet Drive. The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered; the Weasley's' house burst with the strange and unexpected.

Harry got a shock the first time he looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, _"Tuck your shirt in, scruffy!" _Jamie thought it was hilarious and kept sneaking up behind him and yelling that to him, making him jump.

The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he felt things were getting too quiet, and small explosions from Fred and George's bedroom were considered perfectly normal.

Mrs. Weasley fussed over the state of her socks and tried to force harry to eat fourth helpings at every meal.

Mr. Weasley liked Harry and Jamie to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard them with questions about life with Muggles, asking him to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.

"_Fascinating_." he would say as Harry talked him through using a telephone. "_Ingenious_, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic."

Jamie heard from Hogwarts one sunny morning about a week after he had arrived at the Burrow. He and Ron went down to breakfast to find Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table. The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter.

Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harry entered a room.

She dived under the table to retrieve the bowl and emerged with her face glowing like the setting sun. Pretending he hadn't noticed this, Harry sat down and took the toast Mrs. Weasley offered him. Jamie wanted to get them together, but didn't know how.

"Letters from school," said Mr. Weasley, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're here, Harry — doesn't miss a trick, that man. You two've got them, too," he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas.

For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. Harry's told him to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King's Cross station on September first. There was also a list of the new books he'd need for the coming year.

_SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE: _

_The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk _

_Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart _

_Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart _

Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harry's.

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan — bet it's a witch."

At this point, Fred caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.

"That lot won't come cheap," said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive…"

"Well, we'll manage," said Mrs. Weasley, but she looked worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny.

She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish.

Fortunately no one saw this except the potters, because just then Ron's elder brother Percy walked in.

He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest. Oh my god ego much?

"Morning, all," said Percy briskly. "Lovely day."

He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a molting, gray feather duster — at least, that was what Jamie thought it was, until she saw that it was breathing.

"Errol!" said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. "_Finally_— he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."

He carried Errol to a perch just inside the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so Ron lay him on the draining board instead, muttering, "Pathetic."

Then he ripped open Hermione's letter and read it out loud:

"_`Dear Ron, Jamie and Harry if you're there, _

"_`I hope everything went all right and that Harry and Jamie are okay and that you didn't do anything illegal to get them out, Ron, because that would get theminto trouble, too. _

_I've been really worried and if they're all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl because I think another delivery might finish your one off. _

"_I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course'— _How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on vacation! —_'_

_and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley? _

_Let me know what's happening as soon as you can. Love from Hermione.'" _

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too," said Mrs. Weasley, starting to clear the table. "What're you all up to today?"

Harry, Jamie, Ron, Fred, and George were planning to go up the hill to a small paddock the Weasleys owned.

surrounded by trees that blocked it from view of the village below, meaning that they could practice Quidditch there, as long as they didn't fly too high.

They couldn't use real Quidditch balls, which would have been hard to explain if they had escaped and flown away over the village;

instead they threw apples for one another to catch. They took turns riding Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand, which was easily the best broom;

Ron's old Shooting Star was often outstripped by passing butterflies. Jamie rode charlies old broom.

Five minutes later they were marching up the hill, broomsticks over their shoulders. They had asked Percy if he wanted to join them, but he had said he was busy.

Jamie had only seen Percy at mealtimes so far; he stayed shut in his room the rest of the time.

"Wish I knew what he was up to," said Fred, frowning. "He's not himself. His exam results came the day before you did; twelve O.W.L.s and he hardly gloated at all."

"Ordinary Wizarding Levels," George explained, seeing Harry's puzzled look. "Bill got twelve, too. If we're not careful, we'll have another Head Boy in the family. I don't think I could stand the shame."

Bill was the oldest Weasley brother. He and the next brother, Charlie, had already left Hogwarts. Jamie had never met either of them, but knew that Charlie was in Romania studying dragons and Bill in Egypt working for the wizard's bank, Gringotts.

"Dunno how Mum and Dad are going to afford all our school stuff this year," said George after a while. "Five sets of Lockhart books!

And Ginny needs robes and a wand and everything…"

Jamie said nothing. She felt a bit awkward. Stored in an underground vault at Gringotts in London was a small fortune that his parents had left them. Of course, it was only in the wizarding world that they had money;

you couldn't use Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts in Muggle shops. She had never mentioned the Gringotts bank account to the Dursleys;

she didn't think their horror of anything connected with magic would stretch to a large pile of gold.

Mrs. Weasley woke them all early the following Wednesday. After a quick half a dozen bacon sandwiches each, they pulled on their coats and Mrs. Weasley took a flowerpot off the kitchen mantelpiece and peered inside.

"We're running low, Arthur," she sighed. "We'll have to buy some more today… Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!"

And she offered him the flowerpot.

Harry stared at them all watching him.

"W-what am I supposed to do?" he stammered.

"He's never traveled by Floo powder," said Ron suddenly. "Sorry, Harry, I forgot."

"Never?" said Mr. Weasley. "But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?"

"I went on the Underground —"

"Really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Were there _escapators_? How exactly —"

"Not _now_, Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Floo powder's a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you've never used it before —"

"He'll be all right, Mum," said Fred. "Harry, watch us first."

He took a pinch of glittering powder out of the flowerpot, stepped up to the fire, and threw the powder into the flames.

With a roar, the fire turned emerald green and rose higher than Fred, who stepped right into it, shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and vanished.

"You must speak clearly, dear," Mrs. Weasley told Harry as George dipped his hand into the flowerpot. "And be sure to get out at the right grate…"

"The right what?" said Harry nervously as the fire roared and whipped George out of sight, too.

"Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you've spoken clearly —"

"He'll be fine, Molly, don't fuss," said Mr. Weasley, helping himself to Floo powder too.

"But, dear, if he got lost, how would we ever explain to his aunt and uncle?"

"They wouldn't mind," Jamie reassured her. "Dudley would think it was a brilliant joke if we got lost up a chimney, don't worry about that —"

"Well… all right… you go after Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, when you get into the fire, say where you're going."

"And keep your elbows tucked in," Ron advised.

"And your eyes shut," said Mrs. Weasley. "The soot —"

"Don't fidget," said Ron. "Or you might well fall out of the wrong fireplace —"

"But don't panic and get out too early; wait until you see Fred and George."

Obviously trying hard to bear all this in mind, Harry took a pinch of Floo powder and walked to the edge of the fire. He took a deep breath, scattered the powder into the flames, and stepped forward; the fire felt like a warm breeze; he opened his mouth and immediately swallowed a lot of hot ash.

"D-Dia-gon Alley," he coughed. Harry disappeared. Jamie went, and thankfully ended up at the right grate, but Harry was gone.

"where's Harry?" Jamie asked.

Jamie, Fred, and George started panicking.

When everyone came out of the fire, they all panicked too. Where was her brother, where was he?

She searched with Hermione, and they decided to wait at gringotts. If he was lost, gringotts was one of the tallest buildings around.

"Harry! Harry! Over here!"

Jamie slammed into Harry, hugging him, " Ithought you were lost or captured by Voldemort, or.."

"Stop," said harry, "I have a headache from seeing Malfoy."

Jamie's face darkened.

"What happened to your glasses? Hello, Hagrid — Oh, it's _wonderful _to see you two again — Are you coming into Gringotts, Harry?"

"As soon as I've found the Weasleys," said Harry.

"Yeh won't have long ter wait," Hagrid said with a grin.

Harry, Jamie and Hermione looked around: Sprinting up the crowded street were Ron, Fred, George, Percy, and Mr. Weasley.

"Harry," Mr. Weasley panted. "We _hoped _you'd only gone one grate too far…" He mopped his glistening bald patch. "Molly's frantic — she's coming now —"

"Where did you come out?" Ron asked.

"Knockturn Alley," said Hagrid grimly.

"_Excellent!" _said Fred and George together.

"We've never been allowed in," said Ron enviously.

"I should ruddy well think not," growled Hagrid. Mrs. Weasley now came galloping into view, her handbag swinging wildly in one hand, Ginny just clinging onto the other.

"Oh, Harry — oh, my dear — you could have been anywhere —"

Gasping for breath she pulled a large clothes brush out of her bag and began sweeping off the soot Hagrid hadn't managed to beat away.

Mr. Weasley took Harry's glasses, gave them a tap of his wand, and returned them, good as new. Harry really needs to learn that spell.

"Well, gotta be off," said Hagrid, who was having his hand wrung by Mrs. Weasley ("Knockturn Alley! If you hadn't found him, Hagrid!").

"See yer at Hogwarts!" And he strode away, head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the packed street.

"Guess who I saw in Borgin and Burkes?" Harry asked Jamie, Ron and Hermione as they climbed the Gringotts steps. "Malfoy and his father."

"Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?" said Mr. Weasley sharply behind them.

"No, he was selling —"

"So he's worried," said Mr. Weasley with grim satisfaction. "Oh, I'd love to get Lucius Malfoy for something…"

"You be careful, Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley sharply as they were bowed into the bank by a goblin at the door. "That family's trouble.

Don't go biting off more than you can chew —"

"So you don't think I'm a match for Lucius Malfoy?" said Mr. Weasley indignantly, but he was distracted almost at once by the sight of Hermione's parents, who were standing nervously at the counter that ran all along the great marble hall, waiting for Hermione to introduce them.

"But you're _Muggles_!" said Mr. Weasley delightedly.

"We must have a drink! What's that you've got there? Oh, you're changing Muggle money. Molly, look!" He pointed excitedly at the ten-pound notes in Mr. Granger's hand.

"Meet you back here," Ron said to Hermione as the Weasleys and Harry were led off to their underground vaults by another Gringotts goblin.

The vaults were reached by means of small, goblin-driven carts that sped along miniature train tracks through the bank's underground tunnels. Jamie enjoyed the breakneck journey down to the Weasleys' vault, but felt horrible, far worse than she had at the Dursley's, when it was opened. There was a very small pile of silver Sickles inside, and just one gold Galleon. Mrs. Weasley felt right into the corners before sweeping the whole lot into her bag. jamie felt even worse when they reached their vault. Harry and her both tried to block the contents from view as he hastily shoved handfuls of coins into a leather bag.

Back outside on the marble steps, they all separated. Percy muttered vaguely about needing a new quill. Fred and George had spotted their friend from Hogwarts, Lee Jordan.

Mrs. Weasley was taking Ginny, Hermione, and Jamie to an undisclosed location. Mr. Weasley was insisting on taking the Grangers off to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink. While they waited for the girls, Harry and Ron got Ice cream and waited in the alley. They girls came back laughing hysterically

"What's wrong with them," ron whispered to harry

"Lord knows," Harry said back.

Then they shopped. Ginny left to a second hand robe store with her mother. (Don't forget a blue one. Jamie yelled, which Hermione found funny) Ron gazed longingly at a full set of Chudley Cannon robes in the windows of Quality Quidditch Supplies until Hermione dragged them off to buy ink and parchment next door.

In Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, they met Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, who were stocking up on Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks, and in a tiny junk shop full of broken wands, lopsided brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called _Prefects Who Gained Power_.

"_A study of Hogwarts prefects and their later careers," _Ron read aloud off the back cover. "That sounds _fascinating_…"

"Go away," Percy snapped.

"'Course, he's very ambitious, Percy, he's got it all planned out… He wants to be Minister of Magic…" Ron told Jamie, Harry and Hermione in an undertone as they left Percy to it.

An hour later, they headed for Flourish and Blotts. They were by no means the only ones making their way to the bookshop. As they approached it, they saw to their surprise a large crowd jostling outside the doors, trying to get in. The reason for this was proclaimed by a large banner stretched across the upper windows:

_GILDEROY LOCKHART _

_will be signing copies of his autobiography _

_MAGICAL ME _

_today 12:30P. 4:30P.M. _

"We can actually meet him!" Hermione squealed. "I mean, he's written almost the whole booklist!" Nice cover.

The crowd seemed to be made up mostly of witches around Mrs. Weasley's age. A harassed-looking wizard stood at the door, saying, "Calmly, please, ladies… Don't push, there… mind the books, now…"

Harry, Jamie, Ron, and Hermione squeezed inside. A long line wound right to the back of the shop, where Gilderoy Lockhart was signing his books. They each grabbed a copy of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 _except for Jamie, who grabbed grade 5 since she owned grade two_._ Jamie was horrible at charms and would need to work aheadand sneaked up the line to where the rest of the Weasleys were standing with Mr. and Mrs. Granger.

"Oh, there you are, good," said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded breathless and kept patting her hair. "We'll be able to see him in a minute…"

Gilderoy Lockhart came slowly into view, seated at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd. The real Lockhart was wearing robes of forget-me-not blue that exactly matched his eyes; his pointed wizard's hat was set at a jaunty angle on his wavy hair. IN real life he had a weak aura. It wasn't strong and smart looking like hermione's or loyal with a slight smart, more strategic edge like Ron's. It definitely wasn't strong like Harry's whose aura had a wonderful fiercely protective and loving side. No his aura almost seemed to be covering something.

A short, irritable-looking man was dancing around taking photographs with a large black camera that emitted puffs of purple smoke with every blinding flash.

"Out of the way, there," he snarled at Ron, moving back to get a better shot. "This is for the _Daily Prophet _—"

"Big deal," said Ron, rubbing his foot where the photographer had stepped on it.

Gilderoy Lockhart heard him.

He looked up. He saw Ron — and then he saw Harry. He stared. Then he leapt to his feet and positively shouted, "It _can't _be Harry Potter?"

The crowd parted, whispering excitedly; Lockhart dived forward, seized Harry's arm, and pulled him to the front.

The crowd burst into applause. Harry's face burned as Lockhart shook his hand for the photographer, who was clicking away madly, wafting thick smoke over the Weasleys.

"Nice big smile, Harry," said Lockhart, through his own gleaming teeth. "Together, you and I are worth the front page."

Harry tried to sidle back over to the Weasleys, but Lockhart threw an arm around his shoulders and clamped him tightly to his side.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said loudly, waving for quiet. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!

"When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography

— which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge —" The crowd applauded again. "He had no _idea_," Lockhart continued, giving Harry a little shake that made his glasses slip to the end of his nose, "that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, _Magical Me_. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

The crowd cheered and clapped and Harry found himself being presented with the entire works of Gilderoy Lockhart.

Staggering slightly under their weight, he managed to make his way out of the limelight to the edge of the room, where Ginny was standing next to her new cauldron.

"You have these," Harry mumbled to her, tipping the books into the cauldron. "I'll buy my own —" Jamie wasn't going to buy any. Waste of money.

"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" said a voice jamie had no trouble recognizing. Jamie whirled around and had her wand up to his throat before Malfoy realized what had happened. "If we weren't in public, you would be under the slap curse right now." Malfoy brushed her off.

"_Famous _Harry Potter," said Malfoy. "Can't even go into a _bookshop _without making the front page."

"Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" said Ginny. It was the first time she had spoken in front of Harry. She was glaring at Malfoy.

"Potter, you've got yourself a _girlfriend_!" drawled Malfoy.

Ginny went scarlet as Ron and Hermione fought their way over, both clutching stacks of Lockhart's books.

"Oh, it's you," said Ron, looking at Malfoy as if he were something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. Which he was.

"Bet you're surprised to see Harry here, eh?"

"Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley," retorted Malfoy. "I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those."

Ron went as red as Ginny. He dropped his books into the cauldron, too, and started toward Malfoy, but Harry and Hermione grabbed the back of his jacket.

"Ron!" said Mr. Weasley, struggling over with Fred and George. "What are you doing? It's too crowded in here, let's go outside."

"Well, well, well — Arthur Weasley."

It was Mr. Malfoy. He stood with his hand on Draco's shoulder, sneering in just the same way.

"Lucius," said Mr. Weasley, nodding coldly.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," said Mr. Malfoy. "All those raids… I hope they're paying you overtime?"

He reached into Ginny's cauldron and extracted, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_.

"Obviously not," Mr. Malfoy said. "Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"

Mr. Weasley flushed darker than either Ron or Ginny.

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said.

"Clearly," said Mr. Malfoy, his pale eyes straying to Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who were watching apprehensively. "The company you keep, Weasley… and I thought your family could sink no lower."

There was a thud of metal as Ginny's cauldron went flying; Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf.

Dozens of heavy spellbooks came thundering down on all their heads; there was a yell of, "Get him, Dad!" from Fred; Mrs. Weasley was shrieking, "No, Arthur, no!"; Jamie yelled go mr. Weasley show that piece of trash whose better, the crowd stampeded backward, knocking more shelves over; "Gentlemen, please — please!" cried the assistant, and then, louder than all —

"Break it up, there, gents, break it up —"

Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy apart.

Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye by an _Encyclopedia of Toadstools_.

He was still holding Ginny's old Transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice.

"Here, girl — take your book — it's the best your father can give you —" Pulling himself out of Hagrid's grip he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.

"Yeh should've ignored him, Arthur," said Hagrid, almost lifting Mr. Weasley off his feet as he straightened his robes. "Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that — no Malfoy's worth listenin' ter — bad blood, that's what it is

— come on now — let's get outta here."

The assistant looked as though he wanted to stop them leaving, but he barely came up to Hagrid's waist and seemed to think better of it.

They hurried up the street, the Grangers shaking with fright and Mrs. Weasley beside herself with fury.

"A fine example to set for your children… _brawling _in public… _what _Gilderoy Lockhart must've thought —"

"He was pleased," said Fred. "Didn't you hear him as we were leaving? He was asking that bloke from the _Daily Prophet _if he'd be able to work the fight into his report — said it was all publicity —"

But it was a subdued group that headed back to the fireside in the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry, the Weasleys, and all their shopping would be traveling back to the Burrow using Floo powder. They said good-bye to the Grangers, who were leaving the pub for the Muggle street on the other side; Mr. Weasley started to ask them how bus stops worked, but stopped quickly at the look on Mrs. Weasley's face.

Harry took off his glasses and put them safely in his pocket before helping himself to Floo powder. Jamie definitely was going to learn that fixing charm. Harry would need it.


	4. away from the BUrrow

The end of the summer vacation came too quickly for Jamie's liking.

She was looking forward to getting back to Hogwarts, but her month at the Burrow had been the happiest of her life. It was difficult not to feel jealous of Ron when she thought of the Dursleys and the sort of welcome she could expect next time she turned up on Privet Drive.

On their last evening, Mrs. Weasley conjured up a sumptuous dinner that included all of Jamie's and Harry's favourite things, ending with a mouthwatering treacle pudding and a glorious bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Fred and George rounded off the evening with a display of Filibuster fireworks; they filled the kitchen with red and blue stars that bounced from ceiling to wall for at least half an hour.

Then it was time for a last mug of hot chocolate and bed.

It took a long while to get started next morning. They were up at dawn, but somehow they still seemed to have a great deal to do. Mrs. Weasley dashed about in a bad mood looking for spare socks and quills;

people kept colliding on the stairs, half-dressed with bits of toast in their hands; and Mr. Weasley nearly broke his neck, tripping over a stray chicken as he crossed the yard carrying Ginny's trunk to the car.

Jamie and Harry couldn't see how eight people, six large trunks, two owls, and a rat

were going to fit into one small Ford Anglia. They had reckoned, of course, without the special features that Mr. Weasley had added.

"Not a word to Molly," he whispered to them as he opened the trunk and showed them how it had been magically expanded so that the luggage fitted easily.

When at last they were all in the car, Mrs. Weasley glanced into the back seat, where Harry, Jamie, Ron, Fred, George, and Percy

were all sitting comfortably side by side, and said, "Muggles _do _know more than we give them credit for, don't they?"

She and Ginny got into the front seat, which had been stretched so that it resembled a park bench. "I mean, you'd never know it was this roomy from the outside, would you?"

Mr. Weasley started up the engine and they trundled out of the yard, Jamie turning back for a last look at the house. She barely had time to wonder when he'd see it again when they were back. George had forgotten his box of Filibuster fireworks.

Five minutes after that, they skidded to a halt in the yard so that Fred could run in for his broomstick.

They had almost reached the highway when Ginny shrieked that she'd left her diary.

By the time she had clambered back into the car, they were running very late, and tempers were running high.

Mr. Weasley glanced at his watch and then at his wife.

"Molly, dear —"

"_No_, Arthur –"

"No one would see — this little button here is an Invisibility Booster I installed — that'd get us up in the air — then we fly above the clouds. We'd be there in ten minutes and no one would be any the wiser —"

"I said no, Arthur, not in broad daylight —"

They reached King's Cross at a quarter to eleven. Mr. Weasley dashed across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all hurried into the station.

Jamie had caught the Hogwarts Express the previous year. The tricky part was getting onto platform nine and three-quarters, which wasn't visible to the Muggle eye. What you had to do was walk through the solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten. It didn't hurt, but it had to be done carefully so that none of the Muggles noticed you vanishing.

"Percy first," said Mrs. Weasley, looking nervously at the clock overhead, which showed they had only five minutes to disappear casually through the barrier.

Percy strode briskly forward and vanished.

Mr. Weasley went next; Fred and George followed.

"I'll take Ginny and Jamie and you two come right after us," Mrs. Weasley told Harry and Ron, grabbing Ginny's hand and setting off. In the blink of an eye they were gone. The Hogwarts express was there, beautiful as ever, Jamie waited for Harry and Ron with Ginny in the very last compartment. Hermione came shortly after they got in, but Harry and Ron were nowhere to be found. The train left, and then Jamie and Ginny started to panic and think the exact same thing: Oh-mi-god where's my brother! The whole train ride was spent worrying. Hermione started helping Ginny with first year work, and Jamie started working on her crappy charms work.

Her and Hermione rode the carriages up to the school, impressed by the fact there was nothing pulling them, and sat at the Gryffindor table, saving a spot for Harry and Ron. The first years came in, and while a very small, mousy-haired boy had been called forward to place the hat on his head, Jamie saw Harry and ron at the entrance hall. She was going to call out to them, but then Snape grabbed them a brought them downstairs. Wait! How did they get to school…

"Password?" The fat lady said as they approached.

"We're going to wait for some people," said Hermione.

"The ones that crashed a flying car into the whomping willow and got expelled, Potter and Weasley?"

"They weren't expelled," Jamie said stubbornly. They weren't"

Just then Harry and Ron came up

"_There _you are! Where have you _been_? The most _ridiculous _rumours — someone said you'd been expelled for crashing a flying _car_!" yelled Hermione.

'Hey! Not my fault a tree got in the way of my perfect landing!' Ron protested indignantly.

I'm just glad you're not," said Jamie, and she gave them the password, where they were bombarded by people


	5. appreciate my hard work

Things started to go downhill from breakfast in the Great Hall. The four long house tables were laden with tureens of porridge, plates of kippers, mountains of toast, and dishes of eggs and bacon,

beneath the enchanted ceiling (today, a dull, cloudy gray). Harry and Ron sat down at the Gryffindor table next to Jamie, who had a notebook open with suspicious writing with the words switch snape nose and How? written in it, and Hermione, who had her copy of Voyages with Vampires propped open against a milk jug.

There was a slight stiffness in the way Hermione said "Morning," which told Jamie that she was still disapproving of the way they had arrived. Jamie congratulated them. Neville Longbottom, on the other hand, greeted them cheerfully.

Neville was an awesome kid with a horrible memory. Jamie always worked with him in class. She was pretty much his only friend, which bothered her. Neville was amazing and Jamie was almost as close to him as she was Ron. Neville was also part of her "friend family" as she called it. Hermione and ginny were the sisters, Neville and Ron were the brothers, and of course Harry was the most important of them all to her. Neville looked at what she was writing and said,"Why don't you switch someone's nose." "Brilliant," Jamie whispered back,"Thanks."

"Mail's due any minute — I think Gran's sending a few things I forgot."

As eating a choco-chip muffin when, sure enough, there was a rushing sound overhead and a hundred or so owls streamed in, circling the hall and dropping letters and packages into the chattering crowd. A big, lumpy package bounced off Neville's head and, a second later, something large and gray fell into Hermione's jug, spraying them all with milk and feathers.

"Errol!" said Ron, pulling the bedraggled owl out by the feet. Errol slumped, Unconscious, onto the table, his legs in the air and a damp red envelope in his beak.

"Oh, no —" Ron gasped.

"It's all right, he's still alive," said Hermione, prodding Errol gently with the tip of her finger.

It's not that — it's that."

Ron was pointing at the red envelope. It looked quite ordinary to Jamie, but Ron and Neville were both looking at it as though they expected it to explode.

"What's the matter?" said Harry.

"She's—she's sent me a Howler," said Ron faintly.

"You'd better open it, Ron," said Neville in a timid whisper. "It'll be worse if you don't. My gran sent me one once, and I ignored it and" — he gulped —"it was horrible."

Jamie looked from their petrified faces to the red envelope.

"What's a Howler?" Harry and Jamie said together.

But Ron's whole attention was fixed on the letter, which had begun to smoke at the corners.

"Open it," Neville urged. "It'll all be over in a few minutes —"

Ron stretched out a shaking hand, eased the envelope from Errol's beak, and slit it open. Neville stuffed his fingers in his ears. A split second later, Jamie knew why. She thought for a moment it had exploded; a roar of sound filled the huge hall, shaking dust from the ceiling.

"—STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE —"

Mrs. Weasleys yells, a hundred times louder than usual, made the plates and spoons rattle on the table, and echoed deafeningly off the stone walls. People throughout the hall were swiveling around to see who had received the Howler, and Ron sank so low in his chair that only his crimson forehead could be seen.

"—LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME, WE DIDN'T BRING YOU UP TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS, YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED —"

Jamie had been wondering when Harry was going to crop up. She tried very hard to look as though she couldn't hear the voice that was making her eardrums throb.

"—ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED — YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME."

A ringing silence fell. The red envelope, which had dropped from Ron's hand, burst into flames and curled into ashes.

Harry and Ron sat stunned, as though a tidal wave had just passed over them. A few people laughed and, gradually, a babble of talk broke out again.

Hermione closed Voyages with Vampires and looked down at the top of Ron's head.

"Well, I don't know what you expected, Ron, but you —"

"Don't tell me I deserved it," snapped Ron.

Professor McGonagall was moving along the Gryffindor table, handing out course schedules. Jamie took her's and saw that they had double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs first.

Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the castle together, crossed the vegetable patch, and made for the greenhouses, where the magical plants were kept. At least the Howler had done one good thing:

Hermione seemed to think they had now been punished enough and was being perfectly friendly again.

As they neared the greenhouses they saw the rest of the class standing outside, waiting for Professor Sprout. Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had only just joined them when she came striding into view across the lawn, accompanied by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Professor Sprout's arms were full of bandages.

Professor Sprout was a squat little witch who wore a patched hat over her flyaway hair; there was usually a large amount of earth on her clothes and her fingernails would have made Aunt Petunia faint.

Gilderoy Lockhart, however, was immaculate in sweeping robes of turquoise, his golden hair shining under a perfectly positioned turquoise hat with gold trimming.

"Oh, hello there!" he called, beaming around at the assembled students. "Just been showing Professor Sprout the right way to doctor a Whomping Willow!

But I don't want you running away with the idea that I'm better at Herbology than she is! I just happen to have met several of these exotic plants on my travels…"

"Greenhouse three today, chaps!" said Professor Sprout, who was looking distinctly disgruntled, not at all her usual cheerful self.

There was a murmur of interest. They had only ever worked in greenhouse one before —greenhouse three housed far more interesting and dangerous plants.

Professor Sprout took a large key from her belt and unlocked the door. Harry caught a whiff of damp earth and fertilizer mingling with the heavy perfume of some giant, umbrella-sized flowers dangling from the ceiling. He was about to follow Ron and Hermione inside when Lockhart's hand shot out.

"Harry! I've been wanting a word — you don't mind if he's a couple of minutes late, do you, Professor Sprout?"

Judging by Professor Sprout's scowl, she did mind, but Lockhart said, "That's the ticket," and closed the greenhouse door in her face.

Rude much?

Professor Sprout was standing behind a trestle bench in the center of the greenhouse. About twenty pairs of different-colored ear muffs were lying on the bench. When Harry had taken his place between Ron and Hermione, she said, "We'll be repotting Mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?"

To nobody's surprise, Hermione's hand was first into the air.

"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative," said Hermione, sounding as usual as though she had swallowed the textbook.

"It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed to their original state."

"Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor," said Professor Sprout. "The Mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?"

Jamie raised her hand.

"The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it," she said promptly.

"Precisely. Take another ten points," said Professor Sprout. "Now, the Mandrakes we have here are still very young."

She pointed to a row of deep trays as she spoke, and everyone shuffled forward for a better look. A hundred or so tufty little plants, purplish green in color, were growing there in rows. They looked quite unremarkable to Jamie, but she had seen.

"Everyone take a pair of earmuffs," said Professor Sprout.

There was a scramble as everyone tried to seize a pair that wasn't pink and fluffy. Jamie and Hermione both avoided the blue, and so Jamie ended up with them, but she didn't mind. She turned her hair to match, and basked in the laughter that came. (A/N Jamie will have more James-ish qualities. She will be slightly arrogant, and pranks will be plentiful)

"When I tell you to put them on, make sure your ears are completely covered," said Professor Sprout. "When it is safe to remove them, I will give you the thumbs-up. Right — earmuffs on."

Jamie snapped the earmuffs over her ears. They shut out sound completely. Professor Sprout put a pair over her own ears, rolled up the sleeves of her robes, grasped one of the tufty plants firmly, and pulled hard.

Jamie let out a gasp of surprise that no one could hear.

Instead of roots, a small, muddy, and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green, mottled skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs. The pics were much less graphic.

Professor Sprout took a large plant pot from under the table and plunged the Mandrake into it, burying him in dark, damp compost until only the tufted leaves were visible. Professor Sprout dusted off her hands, gave them all the thumbs-up, and removed her own earmuffs.

"As our Mandrakes are only seedlings, their cries won't kill yet," she said calmly as though she'd just done nothing more exciting than water a begonia. "However, they will knock you out for several hours, and as I'm sure none of you want to miss your first day back,

make sure your earmuffs are securely in place while you work. I will attract your attention when it is time to pack up.

"Four to a tray — there is a large supply of pots here — compost in the sacks over there — and be careful of the Venemous Tentacula, it's teething."

She gave a sharp slap to a spiky, dark red plant as she spoke, making it draw in the long feelers that had been inching sneakily over her shoulder.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were joined at their tray by a curly-haired Hufflepuff boy Jamie knew by sight but had never spoken to.

Jamie worked with Neville, Hannah Abbot, and Ernie MacMillan. Thye talked light and present, not really talking so much as chatting.

After that they didn't have much chance to talk. Their earmuffs were back on and they needed to concentrate on the Mandrakes. Professor Sprout had made it look extremely easy, but it wasn't. The Mandrakes didn't like coming out of the earth, but didn't seem to want to go back into it either. They squirmed, kicked, flailed their sharp little fists, and gnashed their teeth; Harry spent ten whole minutes trying to squash a particularly fat one into a pot. Haha sucks to be you. Jamie got a small one that went right in when Jamie engorgio-ed the pot, put the mandrake in, shurk and filled with dirt. She thought she had been discreet, but at the end of class, Professor Sprout gave her fifteen points for good thinking.

Everyone traipsed back to the castle for a quick wash and then the Gryffindors hurried off to Transfiguration.

Professor McGonagall's classes were always easy for Jamie, and today was no exception. She was successful on her first try, and McGonagall said, "exactly like your father." McGonagall known her dad. After class, Jamie asked her about her father.

"Your father was a great man," she started," he loved your mother very much and was always in the mood for a good prank. He had a habit of calling me Minnie. I would pretend I hated it, but I always loved it, and began telling some of my friends to call me that."

"May I call you Professor Minnie as long I don't tell people you secretly enjoy it and you pretend you don't like it."

"You're combining the professor everyone else calls me with the special name your father gave me so why not, I don't mind."

Jamie, Harry, and Ron went down to lunch, where Ron's mood was not improved by Hermione's showing them the handful of perfect coat buttons she had produced in Transfiguration. (he had been in a bad mood)They were about to go at it when…

"What've we got this afternoon?" said Harry, hastily changing the subject.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione at once.

"Why," demanded Ron, seizing her schedule, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?"

Hermione snatched the schedule back, blushing furiously.

They finished lunch and went outside into the overcast courtyard. Hermione sat down on a stone step and buried her nose in Voyages with Vampires again.

Harry Jamie, and Ron stood talking about Quidditch for several minutes before Jamie became aware that Harry was being closely watched.

Looking up, she saw the very small, mousy-haired boy Colin Creevy she thought staring at Harry as though transfixed. He was clutching what looked like an ordinary Muggle camera, and the moment Harry looked at him, he went bright red.

"All right, Harry? I'm — I'm Colin Creevey," he said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. D'you think — would it be all right if — can I have a picture?" he said, raising the camera hopefully.

"A picture?" Harry repeated blankly. This was too good. Jamie took out her camera unnoticed and began snapping away.

"So I can prove I've met you," said Colin Creevey eagerly, edging further forward. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you

and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead" (his eyes raked Harry's hairline)

"and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move." Colin drew a great shuddering breath of excitement and said, "It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either.

So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you" — he looked imploringly at Harry —"maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"

"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?"

Loud and scathing, Draco Malfoy's voice echoed around the courtyard. He had stopped right behind Colin, flanked, as he always was at Hogwarts, by his large and thuggish cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Everyone line up!" Malfoy roared to the crowd. "Harry Potter's giving out signed photos!"

"No, I'm not," said Harry angrily, his fists clenching. "Shut up, Malfoy."

"You're just jealous," piped up Colin, whose entire body was about as thick as Crabbe's neck.

"Jealous?" said Malfoy, who didn't need to shout anymore: half the courtyard was listening in. "Of what? I don't want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don't think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself."

Crabbe and Goyle were sniggering stupidly.

"Eat slugs, Malfoy," said Ron angrily. Crabbe stopped laughing and started rubbing his knuckles in a menacing way.

"Be careful, Weasley," sneered Malfoy. "You don't want to start any trouble or your Mummy'll have to come and take you away from school." He put on a shrill, piercing voice. "'If you put another toe out of line'—"

A knot of Slytherin fifth-years nearby laughed loudly at this.

"Weasley would like a signed photo, Potter," smirked Malfoy. "It'd be worth more than his family's whole house —"

Ron whipped out his Spellotaped wand, but Hermione shut Voyages with Vampires with a snap and whispered, "Look out!"

"What's all this, what's all this?" The hard to miss Gilderoy Lockhart was striding toward them, his turquoise robes swirling behind him. "Who's giving out signed photos?"

Harry started to speak but he was cut short as Lockhart flung an arm around his shoulders and thundered jovially, "Shouldn't have asked! We meet again, Harry!"

Pinned to Lockhart's side and burning with humiliation, Jamie saw Malfoy slide smirking back into the crowd.

"Come on then, Mr. Creevey," said Lockhart, beaming at Colin. "A double portrait, can't do better than that, and we'll both sign it for you."

Colin fumbled for his camera and took the picture as the bell rang behind them, signaling the start of afternoon classes.

"Off you go, move along there," Lockhart called to the crowd, and he set off back to the castle with Harry, Jamie following invisibly, who was obviously wishing he knew a good Vanishing Spell, still clasped to his side.

"A word to the wise, Harry," said Lockhart paternally as they entered the building through a side door. "I covered up for you back there with young Creevey — if he was photographing me, too, your schoolmates won't think you're setting yourself up so much…"

Deaf to Harry's stammers, Lockhart swept him down a corridor lined with staring students and up a staircase.

"Let me just say that handing out signed pictures at this stage of your career isn't sensible — looks a tad bigheaded, Harry, to be frank.

There may well come a time when, like me, you'll need to keep a stack handy wherever you go,

but"— he gave a little chortle — "I don't think you're quite there yet."

They had reached Lockhart's classroom and he let Harry go at last. Harry yanked his robes straight and headed for a seat at the very back of the class, where he busied himself with piling all seven of Lockhart's books in front of him, so that he could avoid looking at the real thing.

The rest of the class came clattering in, and Ron and Hermione sat down on either side of Harry.

"You could've fried an egg on your face" said Ron. "You'd better hope Creevey doesn't meet Ginny, or they'll be starting a Harry Potter fan club."

"Shut up," snapped Harry. The last thing he needed was for Lockhart to hear the phrase "Harry Potter fan club."

When the whole class was seated, Lockhart cleared his throat loudly and silence fell. He reached forward, picked up Neville Longbottom's copy of Travels with Trolls, and held it up to show his own, winking portrait on the front.

"Me,"

he said, pointing at it and winking as well. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League,

and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smilingat her!"

He waited for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly.

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books — well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about — just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in —"

When he had handed out the test papers he returned to the front of the class and said, "You have thirty minutes — start —now!"

Harry looked down at his paper and read:

What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?

_**Hot pink Jamie answered**_

What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?

_**To deflate his head**_

3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

nothing

On and on it went, over three sides of paper, right down to:

54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?

national least favorite day day and a brain

Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and rifled through them in front of the class.

"Tut, tut — hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so inYear with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully — I clearly

state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples — though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogdeds Old Firewhisky!"

He gave them another roguish wink. Ron was now staring at Lockhart with an expression of disbelief on his face; Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, who were sitting in front, were shaking with silent laughter. So was Jamie.

Hermione, on the other hand, was listening to Lockhart with rapt attention and gave a start when he mentioned her name.

"…but Miss Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions — good girl! In fact" —he flipped her paper over — "full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?"

Hermione raised a trembling hand.

"Excellent!" beamed Lockhart. "Quite excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so—to business —"

He bent down behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage onto it.

"Now—be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."

In spite of herself, Jamie stopped laughing so had Dean and Seamus.

Neville was cowering in his front row seat.

"I must ask you not to scream," said Lockhart in a low voice. "It might provoke them."

As the whole class held its breath, Lockhart whipped off the cover.

"Yes," he said dramatically. "Freshly caught Cornish pixies."

Seamus Finnigan couldn't control himself. He let out a snort of laughter that even Lockhart couldn't mistake for a scream of terror.

"Yes?" He smiled at Seamus.

"Well, they're not — they're not very —dangerous, are they?" Seamus choked.

"Don't be so sure!" said Lockhart, waggling a finger annoyingly at Seamus. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be!"

The pixies were electric blue and about eight inches high, with pointed faces and voices so shrill it was like listening to a lot of budgies arguing. The moment the cover had been removed, they had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and making bizarre faces at the people nearest them.

"Right, then," Lockhart said loudly. "Let's see what you make of them!" And he opened the cage.

It was pandemonium. The pixies shot in every direction like rockets. Two of them seized Neville by the ears and lifted him into the air.

Several shot straight through the window, showering the back row with broken glass. The rest proceeded to wreck the classroom more effectively than a rampaging rhino. They grabbed ink bottles and sprayed the class with them, shredded books and papers, tore pictures from the walls,

up-ended the waste basket, grabbed bags and books and threw them out of the smashed window; within minutes, half the class was sheltering under desks and Neville was swinging from the iron chandelier in the ceiling.

"Come on now — round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," Lockhart shouted.

He rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand, and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"

It had absolutely no effect; one of the pixies seized his wand and threw it out of the window, too. Lockhart gulped and dived under his own desk

, narrowly avoiding being squashed by Neville, who fell a second later as the chandelier gave way.

The bell rang and there was a mad rush toward the exit. In the relative calm that followed, Lockhart straightened up, caught sight of Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were almost at the door, and said, "Well, I'll ask you three to just nip the rest of them back into their cage." He swept past them and shut the door quickly behind him.

"Can you believe him?" roared Ron as one of the remaining pixies bit him painfully on the ear.

"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," said Hermione, immobilizing two pixies at once with a clever Freezing Charm and stuffing them back into their cage.

"Hands on? "said Harry, who was trying to grab a pixie dancing out of reach with its tongue out. "Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he was doing—"

"Rubbish," said Hermione. "You've read his books — look at all those amazing things he's done —"

"He says he's done," Jamie muttered.

Harry spent a lot of time over the next few days dodging out of sight whenever he saw Gilderoy Lockhart coming down a corridor.

Harder to avoid was Colin Creevey, who seemed to have memorized Harry's schedule.

Nothing seemed to give Colin a bigger thrill than to say, "All right, Harry?" six or seven times a day and hear, "Hello, Colin," back, however exasperated Harry sounded when he said it.

Hedwig was still angry with Harry about the disastrous car journey and Ron's wand was still malfunctioning, surpassing itself on Friday morning by shooting out of Ron's hand in Charms and hitting tiny old Professor Flitwick squarely between the eyes, creating a large, throbbing green boil where it had struck. Jamie still had to talk to him. Professor Minnie had said he had been closer to her mother, though Lily Potter had been closest to Professor Slughorn, who was, surprisingly head of Slytherin, although he was retired now, and Minnie advised her not to owl, as Slughorn hated to be disturbed.

So with one thing and another, Jamie was quite glad to reach the weekend.

Her, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were planning to visit Hagrid on Saturday morning. Jamie, however, was shaken awake several hours earlier than she would have liked by Angelina Johnson, Right-wand Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Whassamatter?" said Jamie groggily.

"Quidditch practice!" said Angelia. "Come on!"

Jamie was wide awake the moment angelina said quidditch.

There was a thin mist hanging across the pink-and-gold sky.

jamie pulled on her practice clothes. (a red shirt with a gold G on it and knee length gray pants.) shortened her hair andgrabbed the school broom that minnie let her keep in her dorm because it was in surprisingly good condition and was likely to be ruined if Jamie didn't protect it. Jamie hurried down to practice. only Wood was down there.

"You seem to be the only one awake," Wood commented.

"You can never be to tired for quidditch. Jamie and Wood discussed plays to make until everyone was there.

Wood was holding up a large diagram of a Quidditch field, on which were drawn many lines, arrows, and crosses in different coloured inks. He took out his wand, tapped the board, and the arrows began to wiggle over the diagram like caterpillars. As Wood launched into a speech about his new tactics, Fred Weasley's head drooped right onto Alicia Spinnet's shoulder and he began to snore.

The first board took nearly twenty minutes to explain, but there was another board under that, and a third under that one. Jamie was the only one paying attention. The plays were brilliant.

"So Is that clear? Any questions?"

"I've got a question, Oliver," said George, who had woken with a start. "Why couldn't you have told us all this yesterday when we were awake?"

"Now, listen here, you lot," he said, glowering at them all.

"We may have won the Quidditch cup last year, but we will win again, this time with our team completely together no offense jami""none taken"" We're easily the best team."

Harry shifted guiltily in his seat. He had been unconscious in the hospital wing for the final match of the previous year,

meaning that Gryffindor had not been whole

"So this year, we train harder than ever before…

Okay, let's go and put our new theories into practice!" Wood shouted, seizing his broomstick and leading the way out of the locker rooms. Stiff-legged and still yawning, his team followed.

They had been in the locker room so long that the sun was up completely now,

although remnants of mist hung over the grass in the stadium. As Jamie walked onto the field, she saw Ron and Hermione sitting in the stands.

"Aren't you finished yet?" called Ron incredulously.

"Haven't even started," said Harry, looking jealously at the toast and marmalade Ron and Hermione had brought out of the Great Hall.

"Wood's been teaching us new moves."

She mounted "her" broomstick and kicked at the ground, soaring up into the air. The cool morning air whipped his face, waking him far more effectively than Wood's long talk.

It felt wonderful to be back on the Quidditch field. She soared right around the stadium at full speed, racing Fred and George.

"What's that funny clicking noise?" called Fred as they hurtled around the corner.

Jamie looked into the stands. Colin was sitting in one of the highest seats, his camera raised, taking picture after picture, the sound strangely magnified in the deserted stadium She almost fell off her broom laughing.

"Look this way, Harry! This way!" he cried shrilly.

"Who's that?" said Fred.

"No idea," Harry lied, putting on a spurt of speed that took him as far away as possible from Colin.

"What's going on?" said Wood, frowning, as he skimmed through the air toward them. "Why's that first year taking pictures? I don't like it. He could be a Slytherin spy, trying to find out about our new training program."

"He's in Gryffindor," said Harry quickly.

"And the Slytherins don't need a spy, Oliver," said George.

"What makes you say that?" said Wood testily.

"Because they're here in person," said George, pointing.

Several people in green robes were walking onto the field, broomsticks in their hands.

"I don't believe it!" Wood hissed in outrage. "I booked the field for today! We'll see about this!"

Wood shot toward the ground, landing rather harder than he meant to in his anger, staggering slightly as he dismounted. Jamie, Harry, Fred, and George followed.

"Flint!" Wood bellowed at the Slytherin Captain. "This is our practice time! We got up specially!

You can clear off now!"

Marcus Flint was even larger than Wood. He had a look of trollish cunning

on his face as he replied, "Plenty of room for all of us, Wood."

Angelina, Alicia, and Katie had come over, too. There were no girls on the Slytherin team,

who stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the Gryffindors, leering to a man.

"But I booked the field!" said Wood, positively spitting with rage. "I booked it!"

"Ah," said Flint. "But I've got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape.

'I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new Seeker'. "

"You've got a new Seeker?" said Wood, distracted. "Where?"

And from behind the six large figures before them came a seventh, smaller boy, smirking all over his pale, pointed face. It was Draco Malfoy.

"Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's son?" said Fred, looking at Malfoy with dislike.

"Funny you should mention Draco's father," said Flint as the whole Slytherin team smiled still more broadly. "Let me show you the generous gift he's made to the Slytherin team."

All seven of them held out their broomsticks. Seven highly polished, brand-new handles and seven sets of fine gold lettering spelling the words Nimbus Two Thousand and One gleamed under the Gryffindors' noses in the early morning sun.

"Very latest model. Only came out last month," said Flint carelessly, flicking a speck of dust from the end of his own. "I believe it outstrips the old Two Thousand series by a considerable amount.

As for the old Cleansweeps" — he smiled nastily at Fred and George, who were both clutching Cleansweep Fives —" sweeps the board with them."

None of the Gryffindor team could think of anything to say for a moment. Malfoy was smirking so broadly his cold eyes were reduced to slits.

"Oh, look," said Flint. "A field invasion."

Ron and Hermione were crossing the grass to see what was going on.

"What's happening?" Ron asked Harry. "Why aren't you playing? And what's hedoing here?"

He was looking at Malfoy, taking in his Slytherin Quidditch robes.

"I'm the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley," said Malfoy, smugly.

"Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team."

Ron gaped, open-mouthed, at the seven superb broomsticks in front of him.

"Good, aren't they?" said Malfoy smoothly. "But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."

The Slytherin team howled with laughter.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Hermione sharply. "They got in on pure talent."

"We have so much talent they can't even fit it all on one team, so suck it." Added Jamie

The smug look on Malfoy's face flickered.

"Control your Mudblood dog Mud-spawn," he spat.

Jamie knew at once that Malfoy had said something really bad because there was an instant uproar at his words. Flint had to dive in front of Malfoy to stop Fred and George jumping on him,

Alicia shrieked, "How dare you!" and Ron plunged his hand into his robes, pulled out his wand, yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" and pointed it furiously under Flint's arm at Malfoys face.

A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of Ron's wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him reeling backward onto the grass.

"Ron! Ron! Are you all right?" squealed Hermione.

Ron opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead he gave an almighty belch and several slugs dribbled out of his mouth onto his lap.

The Slytherin team were paralyzed with laughter. Flint was doubled up, hanging onto his new broomstick for support. Malfoy was on all fours, banging the ground with his fist.

The Gryffindors were gathered around Ron, who kept belching large, glistening slugs. Nobody seemed to want to touch him.

"We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest," said Harry to Hermione, who nodded bravely, and the three of them pulled Ron up by the arms.

"What happened, Harry? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can't you?"

Colin had run down from his seat and was now dancing alongside them as they left the field. Ron gave a huge heave and more slugs dribbled down his front.

"Oooh," said Colin, fascinated and raising his camera. "Can you hold him still, Harry?"

"Get out of the way, Colin!" said Harry angrily. Jamie, Harry and Hermione supported Ron out of the stadium and across the grounds toward the edge of the forest.

"Nearly there, Ron," said Hermione as the gamekeeper's cabin came into view. "You'll be all right in a minute — almost there —"

They were within twenty feet of Hagrid's house when the front door opened, but it wasn't Hagrid who emerged. Gilderoy Lockhart, wearing robes of palest mauve today, came striding out.

"Quick, behind here," Harry hissed, dragging Ron behind a nearby followed readily, but Hermione followed somewhat reluctantly.

"It's a simple matter if you know what you're doing!" Lockhart was saying loudly to Hagrid.

"If you need help, you know where I am! I'll let you have a copy of my book.

I'm surprised you haven't already got one — I'll sign one tonight and send it over.

Well, good-bye!" And he strode away toward the castle.

Harry waited until Lockhart was out of sight,

then pulled Ron out of the bush and up to Hagrid's front door. They knocked urgently.

Hagrid appeared at once, looking very grumpy, but his expression brightened when he saw who it was.

"Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me — come in, come in — thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again —"

jamie, Harry and Hermione supported Ron over the threshold into the one-roomed cabin, which had an enormous bed in one corner, a fire crackling merrily in the other. Hagrid didn't seem perturbed by Ron's slug problem, which Harry hastily explained as he lowered Ron into a chair.

"Better out than in," he said cheerfully, plunking a large copper basin in front of him. "Get 'em all up, Ron."

"I don't think there's anything to do except wait for it to stop," said Hermione anxiously, watching Ron bend over the basin. "That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand —"

Hagrid was bustling around making them tea. His boarhound, Fang, was slobbering over Harry.

"What did Lockhart want with you, Hagrid?" Harry asked, scratching Fang's ears.

"Givin' me advice on gettin' kelpies out of a well," growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked rooster off his scrubbed table and setting down the teapot.

"Like I don' know. An' bangin' on about some banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle."

It was most unlike Hagrid to criticize a Hogwarts' teacher, and Jamie looked at him in surprise.

Hermione, however, said in a voice somewhat higher than usual, "I think you're being a bit unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job —"

"He was the on'y man for the job," said Hagrid, offering them a plate of treacle fudge, while Ron coughed squelchily into his basin. "An' I mean the on'y one.

Gettin' very difficult ter find anyone fer the Dark Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin' ter think it's jinxed. No one's lasted long fer a while now.

So tell me," said Hagrid, jerking his head at Ron. "Who was he tryin' ter curse?"

"Malfoy called Hermione and Jamie something — it must've been really bad, because everyone went wild."

"Itwas bad," said Ron hoarsely,

emerging over the tabletop looking pale and sweaty. "Malfoy called her 'Mudblood,' Hagrid — and He called Jamie MUd-spawn,"

Ron dived out of sight again as a fresh wave of slugs made their appearance. Hagrid looked outraged.

"He didn'!" he growled at Hermione.

"He did," she said. "But I don't know what it means. I could tell it was really rude, of course —"

"It's about the most insulting thing he could think of," gasped Ron, coming back up. "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born — you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards — like Malfoy's family — who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood."

He gave a small burp, and a single slug fell into his outstretched hand. He threw it into the basin and continued, "I mean, the rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all. Look at Neville Longbottom — he's pure-blood and he can hardly stand a cauldron the right way up."

"Don't be mean to him, " Jamie snapped." and what does mud-spawn mean?"

"It means tha' at least on o' yer parents was muggleborn. he's insulting you and yer mum at the same time."

jamie's whole body turned red with rage." I'll get him back soon."

"It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron, wiping his sweaty brow with a shaking hand. "Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway.

If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out."

He retched and ducked out of sight again.

"Well, I don' blame yeh fer tryin' ter curse him, Ron," said Hagrid loudly over the thuds of more slugs hitting the basin. "Bu' maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired. 'Spect Lucius Malfoy would've come marchin' up ter school if yeh'd cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble."

"Harry," said Hagrid abruptly as though struck by a sudden thought. "Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I've heard you've bin givin' out signed photos. How come I haven't got one?"

Furious, Harry wrenched his teeth apart.

"I have not been giving out signed photos," he said hotly. "If Lockhart's still spreading that around —"

But then he saw that Hagrid was laughing.

"I'm on'y jokin'," he said, patting Harry genially on the back and sending him face first into the table. "I knew yeh hadn't really. I told Lockhart yeh didn' need teh. Yer more famous than him without tryin'."

"Bet he didn't like that," said Harry, sitting up and rubbing his chin.

"Don' think he did," said Hagrid, his eyes twinkling.

"An' then I told him I'd never read one o' his books an' he decided ter go. Treacle fudge, Ron?" he added as Ron reappeared.

"No thanks," said Ron weakly. "Better not risk it."

"Come an' see what I've bin growin'," said Hagrid as Jamie, Harry and Hermione finished the last of their tea.

In the small vegetable patch behind Hagrid's house were a dozen of the largest pumpkins Harry had ever seen. Each was the size of a large boulder.

"Gettin' on well, aren't they?" said Hagrid happily. "Fer the Halloween feast…should be big enough by then."

"What've you been feeding them?" said Harry.

Hagrid looked over his shoulder to check that they were alone.

"Well, I've bin givin' them — you know — a bit o' help —"

Jamie noticed Hagrid's flowery pink umbrella leaning against the back wall of the cabin.

Jamie had had reason to believe before now that this umbrella was not all it looked; in fact, she had the strong impression that Hagrid's old school wand was concealed inside it. Hagrid wasn't supposed to use magic.

He had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, but Jamie had never found out why — any mention of the matter and Hagrid would clear his throat loudly and become mysteriously deaf until the subject was changed.

"An Engorgement Charm, I suppose?" said Hermione, halfway between disapproval and amusement. "Well, you've done a good job on them."

"That's what yer little sister said," said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. "Met her jus' yesterday." Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching.

"Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone else at my house."

He winked at Harry. "If yeh ask me, she wouldn' say no ter a signed —"

"Oh, shut up," said Harry. Ron snorted with laughter and the ground was sprayed with slugs.

"Watch it!" Hagrid roared, pulling Ron away from his precious pumpkins.

It was nearly lunchtime and as Jamie and Harry had only had one bit of treacle fudge since dawn, she was keen to go back to school to eat.

They said good-bye to Hagrid and walked back up to the castle, Ron hiccoughing occasionally, but only bringing up two very small slugs.

They had barely set foot in the cool entrance hall when a voice rang out, "There you are, Potter, Potter — Weasley." Professor McGonagall was walking toward them, looking stern.

"You three will do your detentions this evening."

"What're we doing, Professor?" said Ron, nervously suppressing a burp.

"Youwill be polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr. Filch," said Professor McGonagall. "And no magic, Weasley — elbow grease."

Ron gulped. Argus Filch, the caretaker, was loathed by every student in the school.

"And you, Potter and Potter, will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail," said Professor McGonagall.

"Oh n — Professor, can't I go and do the trophy room, too?" said Harry desperately.

"Certainly not," said Professor McGonagall, raising her eyebrows. "Professor Lockhart requested you particularly. Eight o'clock sharp, both of you."

Jamie, Harry and Ron slouched into the Great Hall in states of deepest gloom, Hermione behind them, wearing a well-you-did-break-school-rules sort of expression. "I totally wish I hadn't written those things for the test now.(she had gotten detention for the hot pink and nothing comments.)

"Filch'll have me there all night," said Ron heavily. "No magic! There must be about a hundred cups in that room. I'm no good at Muggle cleaning."

"I'd swap anytime," said Harry hollowly. "I've had loads of practice with the Dursleys.

Answering Lockhart's fan mail… he'll be a nightmare…"

Saturday afternoon seemed to melt away, and in what seemed like no time, it was five minutes to eight, and Harry and Jamie were dragging their feet along the second-floor corridor to Lockhart's office. Harry gritted his teeth and knocked.

The door flew open at once. Lockhart beamed down at him.

"Ah, here's the scalawag!" he said. "Come in, Harry, come in —"

Shining brightly on the walls by the light of many candles were countless framed photographs of Lockhart. He had even signed a few of them. Another large pile lay on his desk.

"You can address the envelopes!" Lockhart told Harry, as though this was a huge treat.

"This first one's to Gladys Gudgeon, bless her — huge fan of mine —"

The minutes snailed by. Jamie went into a zone-out state and let Lockhart's voice wash over her, occasionally saying, "Mmm" and "Right" and "Yeah." Now and then she caught a phrase like, "Fame's a fickle friend, Harry," or "Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that."

The candles burned lower and lower, making the light dance over the many moving faces of Lockhart watching her.

Jamie moved her aching hand over what felt like the thousandth envelope, writing out Betty white's address. It must be nearly time to leave, Jamie thought miserably, please let it be nearly time…

And then she heard something — something quite apart from the spitting of the dying candles and Lockhart's prattle about his fans.

It was a voice, a voice to chill the bone marrow, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom It was the voice of a deadly snake.

"Come…come to me… Let me rip you.. .Let me tear you.. .Let me kill you…"

"What?" Harry and Jamie said together loudly.

"I know!" said Lockhart. "Six solid months at the top of the best-seller list! Broke all records!"

"No," said Harry frantically. "That voice!"

"Sorry?" said Lockhart, looking puzzled. "What voice?"

"That—that voice that said — didn't you hear it?"

Lockhart was looking at Harry in high astonishment.

"What are you talking about, Harry? Perhaps you're getting a little drowsy? Great Scott — look at the time! We've been here nearly four hours!

I'd never have believed it — the time's flown, hasn't it?"

Jamie didn't answer. She was straining her ears to hear the voice again, but there was no sound now except for Lockhart telling her she mustn't expect a treat like this every time she got detention.

Feeling dazed, They left.

It was so late that the Gryffindor common room was almost empty. Jamie got into bed, and , to tired to talk to Des like she usually did, she fell asleep.

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly,

though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy.

The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.

Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds. Oliver Wood's enthusiasm for regular training sessions, however, was not dampened, much like Jamie's

which was why Jamie and Harry were to be found, late one stormy Saturday afternoon a few days before Halloween, returning to Gryffindor Tower, drenched to the skin and splattered with mud.

Even aside from the rain and wind it hadn't been a happy practice session. Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team,

had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that the Slytherin team was no more than seven greenish blurs, shooting through the air like missiles.

As They squelched along the deserted corridor he came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as he was. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "… don't fulfill their requirements… half an inch, if that…"

"Hello, Nick," said Harry.

"Hello, hello," said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking round. He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed.

He was pale as smoke, and Jamie could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside.

"You look troubled, young Potter," said Nick, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. (Jamie was immediately invisible, and she headed upstairs to the tower)

"A deathday party?" said Hermione keenly when Harry had changed at last and joined her Jamie and Ron in the common room. "I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those — it'll be fascinating!"

"Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?" said Ron, who was halfway through his Potions homework and grumpy. "Sounds dead depressing to me…"

"I don't want to celebrate death that day of all days," Jamie said darkly, thinking of her parents.

Rain was still lashing the windows, which were now inky black, but inside all looked bright and cheerful. The firelight glowed over the countless squashy armchairs where people sat reading, talking, doing homework or, in the case of Fred and George Weasley, trying to find out what would happen if you fed a Filibuster firework to a salamander.

Fred had "rescued" the brilliant orange, fire-dwelling lizard from a Care of Magical Creatures class and it was now smoldering gently on a table surrounded by a knot of curious people.

Harry was at the point of telling Ron and Hermione about Filch and the Kwikspell course when the salamander suddenly whizzed into the air, emitting loud sparks and bangs as it whirled wildly round the room. Jamie got up and yelled at them for animal abuse, hitting them with the body bind curse and drawing on them with lipstick, to the amusement of many. Torturing the twins by using a sticking charm to keep it to their faces drove the voice out of Jamie's head.

By the time Halloween arrived, Jamie was regretting Harry's rash promise to go to the deathday party. The rest of the school was happily anticipating their Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumours that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.

"A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded Harry bossily. "You said you'd go to the deathday party."

So at seven o'clock, Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead toward the dungeons.

The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Jamie shivered and drew her robes tightly around her, she heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.

"Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered.

They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.

"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome… so pleased you could come…"

He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.

It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform.

A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.

"Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested, Jamie agreed, wanting to warm up her feet.

"Careful not to walk through anyone," said Ron nervously,

and they set off around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead.

Jamie wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.

"Oh, no," said Hermione, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle —"

"Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly.

"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," said Jamie, "And she's not that bad."

"She haunts a toilet?"

"Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums

and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you —"

"Well, that's true."

"Look, food!" said Ron.

On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,

SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON

DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492

Jamie watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.

"Can you taste it if you walk though it?" Harry asked him.

"Almost," said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.

"I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavour," said Hermione knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.

"Can we move? I feel sick," said Ron.

They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them.

"Hello, Peeves," said Harry cautiously.

Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.

"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.

"No thanks," said Hermione.

"Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing. "Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "OY! MYRTLE!"

"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her — er, hello, Myrtle."

The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Jamei had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles.

"What?" she said sulkily.

"How are you, Myrtle?" said Hermione in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet."

Myrtle sniffed.

"Miss Granger was just talking about you —" said Peeves slyly in Myrtle's ear. "Just saying —"

"Just saying — saying — how nice you look tonight," said Hermione, glaring at Peeves.

Myrtle eyed Hermione suspiciously.

"You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling rapidly in her small, see-through eyes.

"Oh myrtle, you poor thing, " said Jamie sympathetically." I would hug you if I could. It must be so hard, everyone being mean to you and not realizing that just because you're dead doesn't mean you don't have feelings." Jamie did believe this, but she was mainly saying this because, well, you never know when Myrtle could come in Handy.

"No—honestly — didn't I just say how nice Myrtle's looking?" said Hermione, nudging Harry and Ron painfully in the ribs.

"Oh, yeah —"

"She did —"

"Don't lie to me," Myrtle gasped,

tears now flooding down her face, while Peeves chuckled happily over her shoulder. "D'you think I don't know what people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle! jamie is the only one whose ever been nice to me. If there's anything I can help you with, I will, because that's what friends do."

"But You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed in her ear.

Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts, yelling, "Pimply! Pimply!"

"Oh, dear," said Hermione sadly.

Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd.

"Enjoying yourselves?"

"Oh, yes," they lied.

"Not a bad turnout," said Nearly Headless Nick proudly.

"The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent… It's nearly time for my speech, I'd better go and warn the orchestra…"

The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded.

"Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.

Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too, but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick's face.

The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd (everyone laughed), and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck.

"Nick!" he roared. "How are you? Head still hanging in there?"

He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder.

"Welcome, Patrick," said Nick stiffly.

"Live 'uns!" said Sir Patrick, spotting Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione and giving a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again (the crowd howled with laughter).

"Very amusing," said Nearly Headless Nick darkly.

"Don't mind Nick!" shouted Sir Patrick's head from the floor.

"Still upset we won't let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say — look at the fellow—"

"I think," said Harry hurriedly, at a meaningful look from Nick, "Nick's very — frightening and — er —"

"Ha!" yelled Sir Patrick's head.

"Bet he asked you to say that!"

"If I could have everyone's attention, it's time for my speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick loudly, striding toward the podium and climbing into an icy blue spotlight.

"My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow…"

But nobody heard much more. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd were turning to watch. Nearly Headless Nick tried vainly to recapture his audience, but gave up as Sir Patrick's head went sailing past him to loud cheers.

Jamie was very cold by now, not to mention hungry.

"I can't stand much more of this," Ron muttered, his teeth chattering, as the orchestra ground back into action and the ghosts swept back onto the dance floor.

"Let's go," Harry agreed.

They backed toward the door, nodding and beaming at anyone who looked at them, and a minute later were hurrying back up the passageway full of black candles.

"Pudding might not be finished yet," said Ron hopefully,

leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.

And then jamie heard it.

"…rip…tear… kill…"

It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice she had heard in Lockhart's office.

Her and Harry stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all their might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway.

"Harry, jamie, what're you —?"

"It's that voice again — shut up a minute —"

"…soo hungry… for so long…"

"Listen!" said Harry urgently, and Ron and Hermione froze, watching them.

"…kill…time to kill…"

The voice was growing fainter. Jamie was sure it was moving away —moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped her as she stared at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Another adventure, but could this be what Dobby was talking about...

And was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn't matter?

"This way," they shouted in unison, and they began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. They sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, somehow knowing where to go, Ron and Hermione clattering behind them.

"Harry, what're we —"

"SHH!"

Jamie strained her ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice: "… I smell blood… I SMELL BLOOD!"

Her stomach lurched —

"It's going to kill someone!" they shouted together, and ignoring Ron's and Hermione's bewildered faces, they ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over their own pounding footsteps —

They hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Ron and Hermione panting behind them, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.

"What was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything…"

But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor.

"Look!"

Something was shining on the wall ahead.

They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE

"What's that thing — hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice.

As they edged nearer, Harry almost slipped — there was a large puddle of water on the floor;

Ron and Hermione grabbed him, and they inched toward the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All four of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash.

Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.

For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Ron said, "Let's get out of here."

"Shouldn't we try and help —" Harry began awkwardly.

"Trust me," said Ron. "We don't want to be found here."

But it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended. From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.

The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat.

Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight.

Then someone shouted through the quiet.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

It was Draco Malfoy.

He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.

What's going on here? What's going on?"

Attracted no doubt by Malfoy's shout,

Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs. Norris and fell back, clutching his face in horror.

"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" he shrieked.

And his popping eyes fell on Harry.

"You!" he screeched.

"You! You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll —"

"Argus!"

Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of other teachers.

In seconds, he had swept past Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione and detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket.

"Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch. "You, too, Mr. Potter, Miss Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger."

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.

"My office is nearest, Headmaster — just upstairs — please feel free —"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore.

The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important,

hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professors McGonagall and Snape.

As they entered Lockhart's darkened office there was a flurry of movement across the walls; Jamie saw several of the Lockharts in the pictures dodging out of sight, their hair in rollers. even though what had happened had already hit her like a steam roller, she took time to inwardly laugh at the poster. She put her hand in her pocket and held Des for reassurance. Des nuzzled her.

The real Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back. Dumbledore lay Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry, jamie, Ron, and Hermione exchanged tense looks and sank into chairs outside the pool of candlelight, watching.

The tip of Dumbledore's long, crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris's fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking.

Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, half in shadow, wearing a most peculiar expression:

It was as though he was trying hard not to smile. Git.

And Lockhart was hovering around all of them, making suggestions.

"It was definitely a curse that killed her — probably the Transmogrifian Torture —

I've seen it used many times,

so unlucky I wasn't there, I know the very countercurse that would have saved her…"

Lockhart's comments were punctuated by Filch's dry, racking sobs.

He was slumped in a chair by the desk, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands. Much as she detested Filch, Jamie couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him, his cat was his world. Dumbledore would believe them, he had to.

Dumbledore was now muttering strange words under his breath and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand but nothing happened. She continued to look as though she had been recently stuffed.

"…I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou,"

said Lockhart, "a series of attacks, the full story's in my autobiography,

I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once…"

The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net. Even the portrait was an idiot.

At last Dumbledore straightened up.

"She's not dead, Argus," he said softly.

Lockhart stopped abruptly in the middle of counting the number of murders he had "prevented."

"Not dead?" choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all — all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore ("Ah! I thought so!" said Lockhart).

"But how, I cannot say…"

"Askhim!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry.

"No second year could have done this," said Dumbledore firmly. "it would take Dark Magic of the most advanced —"

"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat, his pouchy face purpling. "You saw what he wrote on the wall! He found — in my office — he knows I'm a — I'm a—" Filch's face worked horribly. "He knows I'm a Squib!" he finished.

"I never touched Mrs. Norris!"

Harry said loudly.

"And I don't even know what a Squib is."

"Rubbish!" snarled Filch. "He saw my Kwikspell letter!"

"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Snape from the shadows, and Jamie's sense of foreboding increased;

she was sure nothing Snape had to say was going to do them any good.

"Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth as though he doubted it. "But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't he at the Halloween feast?"

Jamie, Harry, Ron and Hermione all launched into an explanation about the deathday party. "… there were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there —"

"But why not join the feast afterward?" said Snape, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Why go up to that corridor?"

Ron and Hermione looked at Harry.

"Because—because —" Harry said, "because we were tired and wanted to go to bed," he said.

"Without any supper?" said Snape, a triumphant smile flickering across his gaunt face. "I didn't think ghosts provided food fit for living people at their parties."

"We weren't hungry," said Ron loudly as his stomach gave a huge rumble.

"Ron has a weird stomach that growls at random times whether he's hungry or not." added Jamie quickly

Ron shot her a look that clearly said' oh gee thanks a lot'.

Snape's nasty smile widened.

"I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful,"

he said. "It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready to be honest."

"Really, Severus," said Professor McGonagall sharply, "I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch.

This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong."

Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly.

Snape looked furious.

So did Filch.

"My cat has been Petrified!" he shrieked, his eyes popping. "I want to see some punishment!"

"We will be able to cure her, Argus," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a

potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."

"I'll make it," Lockhart butted in. "I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep —"

"Excuse me," said Snape icily. "But I believe I am the Potions master at this school."

There was a very awkward pause.

"You may go," Dumbledore said to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

They went, as quickly as they could without actually running.

"I never thought I'd say this, but Go SNAPE! SHOW THAT MORON WHO'S BOSS!"

The door opened behind them," detention with me Miss Potter," said Snape smoothly, "for disrespect to me and( his mouth twisted) Professor Lockhart."

Lockhart

When they were a floor up from Lockhart's office, they turned into an empty classroom and closed the door quietly behind them. Harry squinted at his friends' darkened faces.

"D'you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?"

"No," said Ron, without hesitation. "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world."

something in Ron's voice made Harry ask, "You do believe me, don't you?"

"'Course I do," said Ron quickly. "But — you must admit it's weird…"

"I know it's weird," said Harry. "The whole thing's weird. What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber Has Been Opened… What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, it rings a sort of bell," said Ron slowly. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once… might've been Bill…"

"And what on earth's a Squib?" said Harry.

To his surprise, Ron stifled a snigger.

"Well—it's not funny really — but as it's Filch," he said. "A Squib is someone who was born into a wizarding family but hasn't got any magic powers. Kind of the opposite of Muggle-born wizards, but Squibs are quite unusual. If Filch's trying to learn magic from a Kwikspell course, I reckon he must be a Squib. It would explain a lot. Like why he hates students so much." Ron gave a satisfied smile. "He's bitter."

A clock chimed somewhere.

"Midnight," said Harry. "We'd better get to bed before Snape comes along and tries to frame us for something else."

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back.

Harry had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly' and "looking happy."

Ginny Weasley seemed very disturbed by Mrs. Norris's fate. According to Ron, she was a great cat lover.

"But you haven't really got to know Mrs. Norris," Ron told her bracingly. "Honestly, we're much better off without her." Ginny's lip trembled.

"Stuff like this doesn't often happen at Hogwarts," Ron assured her.

"They'll catch the maniac who did it and have him out of here in no time. I just hope he's got time to Petrify Filch before he's expelled. I'm only joking —"Ron added hastily as Ginny blanched.

The attack had also had an effect on Hermione. It was quite usual for Hermione to spend a lot of time reading, but she was now doing almost nothing else.

Nor could Jamie, Harry and Ron get much response from her when they asked what she was up to, and not until the following Wednesday did they find out. By then , Jamie had started her prank-a-day scheme. each day flowers would sprout out of people's ears, people would turn blue when they walked through the door of the Charms room, and many other such things happened. Jamie was always caught by Professor Minnie who, probably because she had taught Jamie's dad, always seemed to know exactly who did it. Jamie wasn't concerned. It was just a detention, and she was smart enough to get the homework done in the amount of time she had. Due to her prank-a-day scheme, Jamie was getting at least two detentions a day. Usually one from Snape and one from MInnie. For Minnie, she just had to sit and do her homework without talking for one hour. Jamie didn't mind at all. What she did mind was Snape's detentions, she just didn't mind them enough to stop playing pranks. She would get down on her hands and knees and make his dungeon sparkle while he made snide coments on how much her father sucked. Jamie learned a lot on tuning people out. She began to plan her animagus scheme. She had read legends on something called the daimon animaigus. The story told of how one thirteen year-old had become and animaigus along with a fourteen year-old. It said that when you are that young, your form isn't settled, so you can change into any animal.

It was a saturday morning detention,she went to a hurried lunch, then went upstairs to meet harry and Ron in the library, She met Hary on the way, and saw Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Hufflepuff boy from Herbology, coming toward them. Jamie had just opened her mouth to say hello when Justin caught sight of them, turned abruptly, and sped off in the opposite direction.

Theyfound Ron at the back of the library, measuring his History of Magic homework. Professor Binns had asked for a three foot long composition on "The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards."

"I don't believe it, I'm still eight inches short," said Ron furiously, letting go of his parchment, which sprang back into a roll. "And Hermione's done four feet seven inches and her writing's tiny."

"Where is she?" asked Harry, grabbing the tape measure and unrolling his own homework.

"Somewhere over there," said Ron, pointing along the shelves. "Looking for another book. I think she's trying to read the whole library before Christmas."

Jamie snorted and slid her homework across the table to Ron."Minnie's detention's are great," she said," I just sit and do Homework."

Hermione emerged from between the bookshelves. She looked irritable and at last seemed ready to talk to them.

"Youreally shouldn't call her that, AND all the copies of Hogwarts, A History have been taken out," she said, sitting down next to Harry and Ron.

"And there's a two-week waiting list. I wish I hadn't left my copy at home, but I couldn't fit it in my trunk with all the Lockhart books."

"Why do you want it?" said Harry.

"The same reason everyone else wants it," said Hermione, "to read up on the legend of the Chamber of Secrets."

"What's that?" said Harry quickly.

"That's just it. I can't remember," said Hermione, biting her lip. "And I can't find the story anywhere else —

History of Magic was the dullest subject on their schedule.

Professor Binns, who taught it, was their only ghost teacher, and the most exciting thing that ever happened in his classes was his entering the room through the blackboard.

Ancient and shrivelled, many people said he hadn't noticed he was dead. He had simply got up to teach one day and left his body behind him in an armchair in front of the staff room fire;

his routine had not varied in the slightest since.

Today was as boring as ever. Professor Binns opened his notes and began to read in a flat drone like an old vacuum cleaner until nearly everyone in the class was in a deep stupor,

occasionally coming to long enough to copy down a name or date, then falling asleep again.

He had been speaking for half an hour when something happened that had never happened before. Hermione put up her hand.

Professor Binns, glancing up in the middle of a deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed.

"Miss—er —?"

"Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione in a clear voice.

Dean Thomas, who had been sitting with his mouth hanging open, gazing out of the window, jerked out of his trance;

Lavender Brown's head came up off her arms and Neville Longbottom's elbow slipped off his desk.

Professor Binns blinked.

"My subject is History of Magic," he said in his dry, wheezy voice. "I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends."

He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk slipping and continued, "In September of that year, a subcommittee of Sardinian sorcerers —"

He stuttered to a halt. Hermione's hand was waving in the air again.

"Miss Grant?"

"Please, sir, don't legends always have a basis in fact?"

Professor Binns was looking at her in such amazement, Jamie was sure no student had ever interrupted him before, alive or dead.

"Well," said Professor Binns slowly, "yes, one could argue that, I suppose." He peered at Hermione as though he had never seen a student properly before. "However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale —"

But the whole class was now hanging on Professor Binns's every word.

He looked dimly at them all, every face turned to his. Jamiecould tell he was completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest. She wondered if he was pranked if he would notice. probably not she decided and turned her attention back

"Let me see… the Chamber of Secrets…

"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago — the precise date is uncertain — by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor,

"ow oow," went Jamie, but Binns didn't notice. Seamus stifled a snigger.

Helga Hufflepuff,

Rowena Ravenclaw,

and Salazar Slytherin.

They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."

He paused, gazed blearily around the room, and continued.

"For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them.

A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others.

Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families.

He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school."

Professor Binns paused again, pursing his lips, looking like a wrinkled old tortoise.

"Reliable historical sources tell us this much," he said. "But these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets.

The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing.

"Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school.

The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic."

There was silence as he finished telling the story, but it wasn't the usual, sleepy silence that filled Professor Binns's classes. There was unease in the air as everyone continued to watch him, hoping for more. Professor Binns looked faintly annoyed.

"The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course," he said. "Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards.

It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible."

Hermione's hand was back in the air.

"Sir—what exactly do you mean by the 'horror within' the Chamber?"

"That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the Heir of Slytherin alone can control," said Professor Binns in his dry, reedy voice.

The class exchanged nervous looks.

"I tell you, the thing does not exist," said Professor Binns, shuffling his notes. "There is no Chamber and no monster."

"But, sir," said Seamus Finnigan, "if the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"

"Nonsense, O'Flaherty," said Professor Binns in an aggravated tone.

"If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven't found the thing —"

"But, Professor," piped up Parvati Patil, "you'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it —"

"Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't, Miss Pennyfeather," snapped Professor Binns.

"I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore —"

"But maybe you've got to be related to Slytherin, so Dumbledore couldn't—"began Dean Thomas, but Professor Binns had had enough.

"That will do," he said sharply. "It is a myth! It does not exist! There is not a shred of evidence that Slytherin ever built so much as a secret broom cupboard!

I regret telling you such a foolish story! We will return, if you please, to history, to solid, believable, verifiable fact!"

And within five minutes, the class had sunk back into its usual torpor.

"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony,"

Ron told Jamie, Harry and Hermione as they fought their way through the teeming corridors at the end of the lesson to drop off their bags before dinner. "But I never knew he started all this pure-blood stuff. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd've got the train straight back home…"

Hermione nodded fervently, but Harry didn't say anything.

jamie knew why. SHe was the only person he had ever told that the hat wanted to put him in slytherin.

As they were shunted along in the throng, Colin Creevy went past.

"Hiya, Harry!"

"Hullo, Colin," said Harry automatically.

"Harry—Harry — a boy in my class has been saying you're —"

But Colin was so small he couldn't fight against the tide of people bearing him toward the Great Hall; they heard him squeak, "See you, Harry!" and he was gone.

"What's a boy in his class saying about you?" Hermione wondered.

"That I'm Slytherin's heir, I expect," said Harry.

"People here'll believe anything," said Jamie in disgust.

The crowd thinned and they were able to climb the next staircase without difficulty.

"D'youreally think there's a Chamber of Secrets?" Ron asked Hermione.

"I don't know," she said, frowning. "Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs. Norris, and that makes me think that whatever attacked her might not be — well—human."

As she spoke, they turned a corner and found themselves at the end of the very corridor where the attack had happened.

They stopped and looked. The scene was just as it had been that night, except that there was no stiff cat hanging from the torch bracket, and an empty chair stood against the wall bearing the message "The Chamber of Secrets has been Opened."

"That's where Filch has been keeping guard," Ron muttered.

They looked at each other. The corridor was deserted.

"Can't hurt to have a poke around," said Harry, dropping his bag and getting to his hands and knees so that he could crawl along, searching for clues.

"Scorch marks!" he said. "Here — and here —"

"Come and look at this!" said Hermione. "This is funny…"

Harry got up and crossed to the window next to the message on the wall. Hermione was pointing at the topmost pane, where around twenty spiders were scuttling, apparently fighting to get through a small crack. A long, silvery thread was dangling like a rope, as though they had all climbed it in their hurry to get outside.

"Have you ever seen spiders act like that?" said Hermione wonderingly.

"No," said Harry, "have you, Ron? Ron?"

He looked over his shoulder. Ron was standing well back and seemed to be fighting the impulse to run.

"What's up?" said Harry.

"I—don't — like — spiders," said Ron tensely.

"I never knew that," said Hermione, looking at Ron in surprise. "You've used spiders in Potions loads of times…"

"I don't mind them dead," said Ron, who was carefully looking anywhere but at the window. "I just don't like the way they move…"

Hermione giggled.

"It's not funny," said Ron, fiercely. "If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my — my teddy bear into a great big filthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick…

You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and…"

"oh Ron," Jamie hugged him."just stick with me and I'll crush them all."

"Thanks"

Harry said, "Remember all that water on the floor? Where did that come from? Someone's mopped it up."

"It was about here," said Ron, recovering himself to walk a few paces past Filch's chair and pointing. "Level with this door."

He reached for the brass doorknob but suddenly withdrew his hand as though he'd been burned.

"What's the matter?" said Harry.

"Can't go in there," said Ron gruffly. "That's a girls' toilet."

"Oh, Ron, there won't be anyone in there," said Hermione standing up and coming over. "That's Moaning Myrtle's place. Come on, let's have a look."

And ignoring the large OUT OF ORDER sign, she opened the door.

It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom Jamie had ever set foot in.

Under a large, cracked, and spotted mirror were a row of chipped sinks. The floor was damp and reflected the dull light given off by the stubs of a few candles, burning low in their holders; the wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched and one of them was dangling off its hinges. This was myrtle's forever alone cave.

Hermione put her fingers to her lips and set off toward the end stall. When she reached it she said, "Hello, Myrtle, how are you?"

Harry and Ron went to look. Moaning Myrtle was floating above the tank of the toilet, picking a spot on her chin.

"This is a girls' bathroom," she said, eyeing Ron and Harry suspiciously. "They're not girls."

"No," Hermione agreed. "I just wanted to show them how er — nice it is in here."

She waved vaguely at the dirty old mirror and the damp floor.

"Ask her if she saw anything," Harry mouthed at Hermione.

"What are you whispering?" said Myrtle, staring at him.

"Nothing," said Harry quickly. "We wanted to ask —"

"I wish people would stop talking behind my back!" said Myrtle, in a voice choked with tears. "I do have feelings, you know, even if I am dead—"

"Myrtle, no one wants to upset you," said Hermione. "Harry only —"

"No one wants to upset me! That's a good one!" howled Myrtle. "My life was nothing but misery at this place and now people come along ruining my death!"

"I don't want to." Jamie pointed out.

"I know, I'm talking to them." Myrtle said back, pointing at Harry Ron and Hermione.

"We wanted to ask you if you've seen anything funny lately," said Hermione quickly. "Because a cat was attacked right outside your front door on Halloween."

"Did you see anyone near here that night?" said Harry.

"I wasn't paying attention," said Myrtle dramatically. "Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm — that I'm —"

"Already dead," said Ron helpfully.

Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over, and dived headfirst into the toilet, splashing water all over them and vanishing from sight, although from the direction of her muffled sobs, she had come to rest somewhere in the U-bend.

"There's no need to be mean Ron," scolded Jamie.

And they turned and left the bathroom

Harry had barely closed the door on Myrtle's gurgling sobs when a loud voice made all four of them jump.

"RON!"

Percy Weasley had stopped dead at the head of the stairs, prefect badge agleam, an expression of complete shock on his face.

"That's a girls' bathroom!" he gasped. "What were you —?"

"Just having a look around," Ron shrugged. "Clues, you know —"

Percy swelled in a manner that reminded Harry forcefully of Mrs. Weasley.

"Get—away — from — there —" Perry said, striding toward them and starting to bustle them along, flapping his arms.

"Don't you care what this looks like? Coming back here while everyone's at dinner—"

"Why shouldn't we be here?" said Ron hotly, stopping short and glaring at Percy. "Listen, we never laid a finger on that cat!"

"That's what I told Ginny," said Percy fiercely, "but she still seems to think you're going to be expelled, I've never seen her so upset, crying her eyes out, you might think of her, all the first years are thoroughly overexcited by this business—"

"Youdon't care about Ginny," said Ron, whose ears were now reddening. "You're just worried I'm going to mess up your chances of being Head Boy —"

"Five points from Gryffindor!" Percy said tersely, fingering his prefect badge. "And I hope it teaches you a lesson! No more detective work,

or I'll write to Mum!"

And he strode off, the back of his neck as red as Ron's ears.

Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione chose seats as far as possible from Percy in the common room that night. Ron was still in a very bad temper and kept blotting his Charms homework.

When he reached absently for his wand to remove the smudges, it ignited the parchment.

'Fuming almost as much as his homework, Ron slammed The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 shut.

To Jamie's surprise, Hermione followed suit.

"Who can it be, though?" she said in a quiet voice, as though continuing a conversation they had just been having. "Who'd want to frighten all the Squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," said Ron in mock puzzlement. "Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?"

He looked at Hermione. Hermione looked back, unconvinced.

"If you're talking about Malfoy —"

"Of course I am!" said Ron. "You heard him — 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!'— come on, you've only got to look at his foul rat face to know it's him —"

"Malfoy, the Heir of Slytherin?" said Hermione skeptically.

"Look at his family," said Harry, closing his books, too. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin; he's always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's definitely evil enough."

"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries!" said Ron. "Handing it down, father to son…"

"Well," said Hermione cautiously, "I suppose it's possible…"

"But how do we prove it?" said Harry darkly.

"There might be a way," said Hermione slowly, dropping her voice still further with a quick glance across the room at Percy. "Of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect —"

Jamie understood."Polyjuice potion. And I know just the place tio brew it."

"What," said Harry and Ron together.

"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago —"

"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.

"It transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could change into three of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us. Malfoy would probably tell us anything. He's probably boasting about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could hear him."

"This Polyjuice stuff sounds a bit dodgy to me," said Ron, frowning. "What if we were stuck looking like three of the Slytherins forever?"

"It wears off after a while," said Hermione, waving her hand impatiently. "But getting hold of the recipe will be very difficult. Snape said it was in a book called Moste Potente Potions and it's bound to be in the Restricted Section of the library." There was only one way to get out a book from the Restricted Section: You needed a signed note of permission from a teacher.

"Hard to see why we'd want the book, really," said Ron, "if we weren't going to try and make one of the potions."

"I think," said Hermione, "that if we made it sound as though we were just interested in the theory, we might stand a chance…

"But we can make it into animaigus potion." Jamie said quietly.

"What" asked Harry and Hermione, but Ron gasped. "You're not serious, but that's illegal."

"Animagi are people that can turn themselves into animals. If we acheive it before age fifteen, we can turn into many different types of animals."

Harry and Hermione looked impressed, bur Ron looked worried," but it's supposed to be really difficult."

"You just need to meditate until you get a vision." Jamie said. Before you go to bed, concentrate on something and then, if you do it right you'll have a vision. It's said to be something amazing from what I've read, and I have the potion instructions here." Jamie ran up the stairs, got Winston Change's book, and raced back down. "see," she said, " the potion is here.. it takes eighteen months to make, so it'll be ready, allowing time for polyjuice, in June of our third year."

"Eighteen months!" asked Harry In shock. "why can't you just start brewing while we make polyjuice?"

"Polyjuice is one ingredient." explained Jamie," you have to leave it in a cauldron for sixteen months with no flame so it can ferment. Hmm... ferment. it sounds like it'll make us drunk and when we feel a particularily strong emotion, we'll turn. for the last two months, it must be tended to every other day for three hours.

"THe problem is no teacher's going to fall for that," said Ron. "They'd have to be really thick…"

"Lockhart" said jamie with an evil smile.

Since the disastrous episode of the pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought live creatures to class.

Instead, he read passages from his books to them,

and sometimes reenacted some of the more dramatic bits.

He usually picked Harry to help him with these reconstructions;

so far, Harry had been forced to play a simple Transylvanian villager whom Lockhart had cured of a Babbling Curse, a yeti with a head cold, and a vampire who had been unable to eat anything except lettuce since Lockhart had dealt with him.

Harry was hauled to the front of the class during their very next Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, this time acting a werewolf. If he hadn't had a very good reason for keeping Lockhart in a good mood, he would have refused to do it.

"Nice loud howl, Harry — exactly — and then, if you'll believe it,

I pounced — like this — slammed him to the floor — thus with one hand, I managed to hold him down — with my other, I put my wand to his throat —I then screwed up my remaining strength and performed the immensely complex Homorphus Charm

-he let out a piteous moan — go on, Harry — higher than that —good — the fur vanished — the fangs shrank — and he turned back into a man. Simple, yet effective — and another village will remember me forever as the hero who delivered them from the monthly terror of werewolf attacks."

The bell rang and Lockhart got to his feet.

"Homework—compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Signed copies of Magical Me to the author of the best one!"

The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room, where Jamie, Ron and Hermione were waiting.

"Ready?" Harry muttered.

"Wait till everyone's gone," said Hermione nervously. "All right…"

She approached Lockhart's desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, Harry and Ron right behind her.

"Er—Professor Lockhart?" Hermione stammered. "I wanted to — to get this book out of the library. Just for background reading." She held out the piece of paper, her hand shaking slightly. "But the thing is, it's in the Restricted Section of the library, so I need a teacher to sign for it —

I'm sure it would help me understand what you say in Gadding with Ghouls about slow-acting venoms."

"Ah, Gadding with Ghouls!" said Lockhart, taking the note from Hermione and smiling widely at her. "Possibly my very favorite book. You enjoyed it?"

"Oh, yes," said Hermione eagerly. "So clever, the way you trapped that last one with the tea-strainer —"

"Well, I'm sure no one will mind me giving the best student of the year a little extra help," said Lockhart warmly, and he pulled out an enormous peacock quill.

"Yes, nice, isn't it?" he said, misreading the revolted look on Ron's face. "I usually save it for book-signings."

He scrawled an enormous loopy signature on the note and handed it back to Hermione.

"So, Harry," said Lockhart, while Hermione folded the note with fumbling fingers and slipped it into her bag. "Tomorrow's the first Quidditch match of the season, I believe? Gryffindor against Slytherin, is it not? I hear you're a useful player. 'Jamie stifled a snort'

I was a Seeker, too.

I was asked to try for the National Squad, but preferred to dedicate my life to the eradication of the Dark Forces.

Still, if ever you feel the need for a little private training, don't hesitate to ask.

Always happy to pass on my expertise to less able players…"

Harry made an indistinct noise in his throat and then hurried off after Jamie, Ron ,and Hermione.

"I don't believe it," he said as the three of them examined the signature on the note. "He didn't even look at the book we wanted."

"That's because he's a brainless git," said Ron.

"Amen" laughed Jamie.

"But who cares, we've got what we needed—"

"He is not a brainless git," said Hermione shrilly as they half ran toward the library.

"Just because he said you were the best student of the year —"

They dropped their voices as they entered the muffled stillness of the library. Madam Pince, the librarian, was a thin, irritable woman who looked like an underfed vulture.

"Moste Potente Potions?"

she repeated suspiciously, trying to take the note from Hermione; but Hermione wouldn't let go.

"I was wondering if I could keep it," she said breathlessly.

"Oh, come on," said Ron, wrenching it from her grasp and thrusting it at Madam Pince. "We'll get you another autograph. Lockhart'll sign anything if it stands still long enough."

Madam Pince held the note up to the light, as though determined to detect a forgery, but it passed the test. She stalked away between the lofty shelves and returned several minutes later carrying a large and mouldy-looking book.

Hermione put it carefully into her bag and they left, trying not to walk too quickly or look too guilty.

Five minutes later, they were barricaded in Moaning Myrtle's out-of-order bathroom once again.

Hermione had overridden Ron's objections by pointing out that it was the last place anyone in their right minds would go, and Jamie was on good terms, so they were guaranteed some privacy. Moaning Myrtle was crying noisily in her stall, but they were ignoring her, and she them.

Hermione opened Moste Potente Potions carefully, and the three of them bent over the damp-spotted pages. It was clear from a glance why it belonged in the Restricted Section.

Some of the potions had effects almost too gruesome to think about, and there were some very unpleasant illustrations, which included a man who seemed to have been turned inside out and a witch sprouting several extra pairs of arms out of her head.

"Here it is," said Hermione excitedly as she found the page headed The Polyjuice Potion.

It was decorated with drawings of people halfway through transforming into other people.

"This is the most complicated potion I've ever seen," said Hermione as they scanned the recipe. "well, except for animaigus, but geez, Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass," she murmured, running her finger down the list of ingredients. "Well, they're easy enough, they're in the student store-cupboard, we can help ourselves… Oooh, look, powdered horn of a bicorn — don't know where we're going to get that — shredded skin of a boomslang — that'll be tricky, too and of course a bit of whoever we want to change into."

"Excuse me?" said Ron sharply. "What d'you mean, a bit of whoever we're changing into? I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it —"

Hermione continued as though she hadn't heard him.

"We don't have to worry about that yet, though, because we add those bits last…"

Ron turned, speechless, to Harry, who had another worry.

"D'you realize how much we're going to have to steal, Hermione? Shredded skin of a boomslang, that's definitely not in the students' cupboard. What're we going to do, break into Snape's private stores? I don't know if this is a good idea…"

Hermione shut the book with a snap.

"Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine," she said. There were bright pink patches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than usual. "I don't want to break rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion.

But if you don't want to find out if it's Malfoy, I'll go straight to Madam Pince now and hand the book back in."

"I never thought I'd see the day when you'd be persuading us to break rules," said Ron. "All right, we'll do it. But not toenails, okay?"

"How long will it take to make, anyway?" said Harry as Hermione, looking happier, opened the book again.

"Well, since the fluxweed has got to be picked at the full moon and the lacewings have got to be stewed for twenty-one days… I'd say it'd be ready in about a month, if we can get all the ingredients."

"A month?" said Ron. "Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-borns in the school by then!" But Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously again, and he added swiftly, "But it's the best plan we've got, so full steam ahead, I say."

However, while Hermione was checking that the coast was clear for them to leave the bathroom, Ron muttered to Harry, "It'll be a lot less hassle if you can just knock Malfoy off his broom tomorrow."

As they walked out onto the pitch, a roar of noise greeted them; mainly cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were anxious to see Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and hisses heard, too. Madam Hooch, the Quidditch teacher, asked Flint and Wood to shake hands, which they did, giving each other threatening stares and gripping rather harder than was necessary.

"On my whistle," said Madam Hooch. "Three… two… one…"

With a roar from the crowd to speed them upward, the fourteen players rose toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of them, squinting around for the Snitch.

"All right there, Scarhead?" yelled Malfoy, shooting underneath him as though to show off the speed of his broom.

Harry had no time to reply. At that very moment, a heavy black Bludger came pelting toward him; he avoided it so narrowly that he felt it ruffle his hair as it passed.

"Close one, Harry!" said George, streaking past him with his club in his hand, ready to knock the Bludger back toward a Slytherin. Jamie saw George give the Bludger a powerful whack in the direction of Adrian Pucey, but the Bludger changed direction in midair and shot straight for Harry again.

Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and George managed to hit it hard toward Malfoy.

Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry's head.

Harry put on a burst of speed and zoomed toward the other end of the pitch. The bludger was fixed. Jamie hurried down to the bottom of the stands, and since she was a reserve player, she was able to get on the edge of the field at the bottom. The rest of the game was spent in worry which only increased when Lockhart tried to fix the arm.

Harry POV

"Oh, no, not you," he moaned.

"Doesn't know what he's saying," said Lockhart loudly to the anxious crowd of Gryffindors pressing around them. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm."

"No!" said Harry. "I'll let Jamie get it, thanks…"

He knew that the people around him who had no idea what Jamie could heal were confused, but he didn't care.

He tried to sit up, but the pain was terrible. He heard a familiar clicking noise nearby.

"I don't want a photo of this, Colin," he said loudly.

"Lie back, Harry," said Lockhart soothingly. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times —"

"Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?" said Harry through clenched teeth.

"I'll get it lockhart, I am perfectly capable." and with a rush of relief, Harry heard Jamie speak. She was his favorite person, and great at bandaging.

Through the thicket of legs around him, Harry spotted Fred and George Weasley, wrestling the rogue Bludger into a box. It was still putting up a terrific fight.

"Stand back," said Lockhart, who was rolling up his jade-green sleeves.

"No—don't —" said Harry weakly, but Lockhart was twirling his wand and a second later had directed it straight at Harry's arm.

A strange and unpleasant sensation started at Harry's shoulder and spread all the way down to his fingertips. It felt as though his arm was being deflated.

He didn't dare look at what was happening. He had shut his eyes, his face turned away from his arm, but his worst fears were realized as the people above him gasped and Colin Creevey began clicking away madly. His arm didn't hurt anymore— nor did it feel remotely like an arm.

"Ah," said Lockhart. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken.

That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing — ah, Miss Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, would you escort him? — and Madam Pomfrey will be able to — er — tidy you up a bit."

As Harry got to his feet, he felt strangely lopsided. Taking a deep breath he looked down at his right side. What he saw nearly made him pass out again.

Poking out of the end of his robes was what looked like a thick, flesh-coloured rubber glove. He tried to move his fingers. Nothing happened.

Lockhart hadn't mended Harry's bones. He had removed them. He Heard Jamie yell at lockhart, something about being stupid, and then a response, week ...two ...detentions.

Jamie POV

Madam Pomfrey wasn't at all pleased.

"You should have come straight to me!" she raged, holding up the sad, limp remainder of what, half an hour before, had been a working arm. "I can mend bones in a second — but growing them back —"

"You will be able to, won't you?" said Harry desperately.

"I'll be able to, certainly, but it will be painful,"

said Madam Pomfrey grimly, throwing Harry a pair of pajamas. "You'll have to stay the night…"

Jamie and Hermione waited outside the curtain drawn around Harry's bed while Ron helped him into his pajamas. It took a while to stuff the rubbery, boneless arm into a sleeve.

"How can you stick up for Lockhart now, Hermione, eh?" Ron called through the curtain as he pulled Harry's limp fingers through the cuff. "If Harry had wanted deboning he would have asked."

"Anyone can make a mistake,"

said Hermione. "And it doesn't hurt anymore, does it, Harry?"

"No," said Harry, getting into bed. "But it doesn't do anything else either."

As he swung himself onto the bed, his arm flapped pointlessly. or rather, making an excellent point.

Hermione and Madam Pomfrey came around the curtain. Madam Pomfrey was holding a large bottle of something labeled Skele-Gro.

"You're in for a rough night," she said, pouring out a steaming beakerful and handing it to him. "Regrowing bones is a nasty business."

Madam Pomfrey retreated, leaving Jamie, Ron and Hermione to help Harry gulp down some water. "We won, though," said Ron, a grin breaking across his face. "That was some catch you made. Malfoy's face… he looked ready to kill…"

"I want to know how he fixed that Bludger," said Hermione darkly.

"We can add that to the list of questions we'll ask him when we've taken the Polyjuice Potion," said Harry, sinking back onto his pillows. "I hope it tastes better than this stuff…"

"If it's got bits of Slytherins in it? You've got to be joking," said Ron.

The door of the hospital wing burst open at that moment. Filthy and soaking wet, the rest of the Gryffindor team had arrived to see Harry. "Unbelievable flying, Harry," said George. "I've just seen Marcus Flint yelling at Malfoy. Something about having the Snitch on top of his head and not noticing. Malfoy didn't seem too happy."

They had brought cakes, sweets, and bottles of pumpkin juice; they gathered around Harry's bed and were just getting started on what promised to be a good party when Madam Pomfrey came storming over, shouting, "This boy needs rest,

he's got thirty-three bones to regrow! Out! OUT!"

Jamie was waiting outside when he left. She hugged him tight and said" When lockhart pointed his wand at you I thought oh god this is the end. Lockharts going to blow off his face."

Harry laughed and followed her to myrtle's bathroom.

"Oh Harry you should have seen it it was brilliant."

"What?" asked Harry

"Jamie had a shouting match with Lockhart. She told him he was a stupid fraud and that his books were false because he can't even repair a bone let alone cure lycanthropy, werewolves "he added at Harry's confused look." she got two weeks of double detentions and another week of 'em from Mcgonagall,"

"But it was soooo worth it," finished Jamie happily.

"We'd've come to meet you too, but we decided to get started on the Polyjuice Potion," Ron explained as Harry, with difficulty, locked the stall again. "We've decided this is the safest place to hide it."

Harry started to tell them about Colin, but Hermione interrupted.

"We already know — we heard Professor McGonagall telling Professor Flitwick this morning. That's why we decided we'd better get going —"

"The sooner we get a confession out of Malfoy, the better," snarled Ron. "D'you know what I think? He was in such a foul temper after the Quidditch match, he took it out on Colin."

"There's something else," said Harry, watching Hermione tearing bundles of knotgrass and throwing them into the potion.

"Dobby came to visit me in the middle of the night."

Jamie, Ron and Hermione looked up, amazed. Harry told them everything Dobby had told him —or hadn't told him. jamie, Hermione and Ron listened with their mouths open.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" Hermione said.

"This settles it," said Ron in a triumphant voice. "Lucius Malfoy must've opened the Chamber when he was at school here and now he's told dear old Draco how to do it.

It's obvious. Wish Dobby'd told you what kind of monster's in there, though. I want to know how come nobody's noticed it sneaking around the school."

"Maybe it can make itself invisible," said Hermione, prodding leeches to the bottom of the cauldron. "Or maybe it can disguise itself — pretend to be a suit of armor or something — I've read about Chameleon Ghouls —"

"You read too much, Hermione," said Ron,

pouring dead lacewings on top of the leeches. He crumpled up the empty lacewing bag and looked at Harry.

"So Dobby stopped us from getting on the train and broke your arm." He shook his head. "You know what, Harry? If he doesn't stop trying to save your life he's going to kill you."

"Hermione are you sure you don't need me to do anything."

"no you be animagus director, and I'll be polyjuice director."

The news that Colin Creevey had been attacked and was now lying as though dead in the hospital wing had spread through the entire school by Monday morning.

The air was suddenly thick with rumour and suspicion. The first years were now moving around the castle in tight-knit groups, as though scared they would be attacked if they ventured forth alone.

Ginny Weasley, who sat next to Colin Creevey in Charms, was distraught, but Jamie felt that Fred and George were going the wrong way about cheering her up, despite the fact that it was hilarious.

They were taking turns covering themselves with fur or boils and jumping out at her from behind statues.

They only stopped when Percy, apoplectic with rage,

told them he was going to write to Mrs. Weasley and tell her Ginny was having nightmares.

Meanwhile, hidden from the teachers, a roaring trade in talismans, amulets, and other protective devices was sweeping the school.

Neville Longbottom bought a large, evil-smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal, and a rotting newt tail

before the other Gryffindor boys pointed out that he was in no danger; he was a pure-blood, and therefore unlikely to be attacked.

"They went for Filch first," Neville said, his round face fearful. "And everyone knows I'm almost a Squib."

Jamie spent the next two days convincing Neville he was awesome, but she wasn't sure he believed her.

In the second week of December Professor McGonagall came around as usual, collecting names of those who would be staying at school for Christmas. Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione signed her list; they had heard that Malfoy was staying, which struck them as very suspicious.

The holidays would be the perfect time to use the Polyjuice Potion and try to worm a confession out of him.

Unfortunately, the potion was only half finished. They still needed the bicorn horn and the boomslang skin, and the only place they were going to get them was from Snape's private stores. Jamie privately felt she'd rather face Slytherin's legendary monster than let Snape catch him robbing his office.

"What we need," said Hermione briskly as Thursday afternoon's double Potions lesson loomed nearer, "is a diversion. Then one of us can sneak into Snape's office and take what we need."

Harry and Ron looked at her nervously.

"I think I'd better do the actual stealing," Hermione continued in a matter-of-fact tone.

"You two will be expelled if you get into any more trouble, and I've got a clean record. So all you need to do is cause enough mayhem to keep Snape busy for five minutes or so."

"I'd help, but I have an extreme criminal record. I haven't had a detention free day since October 8th

Potions lessons took place in one of the large dungeons. Thursday afternoon's lesson proceeded in the usual way. Twenty cauldrons stood steaming between the wooden desks, on which stood brass scales and jars of ingredients. Snape prowled through the fumes, making waspish remarks about the Gryffindors' work

while the Slytherins sniggered appreciatively. Draco Malfoy, who was Snape's favorite student, kept flicking puffer-fish eyes at Ron and Harry, who knew that if they retaliated they would get detention faster than you could say "Unfair."

Jamie's Swelling Solution was perfect, even though she had her mind on other

She was waiting for Hermione's signal.

When Snape turned and walked off to bully Neville, Hermione caught Jamie's eye and nodded.

Jamei ducked swiftly down behind her cauldron, pulled one of Fred's Filibuster fireworks out of her pocket, and gave it a quick prod with her wand.

The firework began to fizz and sputter. Knowing she had only seconds, jamie straightened up, took aim, and lobbed it into the air; it landed right on target in Goyle's cauldron.

Goyle's potion exploded, showering the whole class. People shrieked as splashes of the Swelling Solution hit them. Malfoy got a faceful and his nose began to swell like a balloon;

Goyle blundered around, his hands over his eyes, which had expanded to the size of a dinner plate —

Snape was trying to restore calm and find out what had happened. JAmie was cracking up, and got three weeks of double detentions for her troubles, but the job was the confusion, Jamie saw Hermione slip quietly into Snape's office.

"Silence! SILENCE!" Snape roared.

"Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draft — "

JAmie laughed even harder as she watched Malfoy hurry forward, his head drooping with the weight of a nose like a small melon.

As half the class lumbered up to Snape's desk, some weighted down with arms like clubs, others unable to talk through gigantic puffed-up lips, Jamie saw Hermione slide back into the dungeon, the front of her robes bulging.

When everyone had taken a swig of antidote and the various swellings had subsided, Snape swept over to Goyle's cauldron and scooped out the twisted black remains of the firework. There was a sudden hush.

"You better be glad I can't expell you," snarled Snape. But his snarl slipped a bit when he saw Jamie's purposfully green eyes.


	6. luv me luv me review that u'l luv me

You scored 20% Slytherin, 24% Ravenclaw, 60% Gryffindor, and 28% Hufflepuff! aren't I awesome. My two fav houses got first and second.(to find this test go to abbzeh's page on fanfiction and it's on the profile.

Hermione threw the new ingredients into the cauldron and began to stir feverishly.

"It'll be ready in two weeks," she said happily.

A week later, Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were walking across the entrance hall when they saw a small knot of people gathered around the notice board, reading a piece of parchment that had just been pinned up. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas beckoned them over, looking excited.

"They're starting a Duelling Club!" said Seamus. "First meeting tonight! I wouldn't mind duelling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days…"

"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Ron, but he, too, read the sign with interest.

"Could be useful," he said to Harry and Hermione as they went into dinner. "Shall we go?"

Jamie, Harry and Hermione were all for it, so at eight o'clock that evening they hurried back to the Great Hall. The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead.

The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.

"I wonder who'll be teaching us?" said Hermione as they edged into the chattering crowd. "Someone told me Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young — maybe it'll be him."

"As long as it's not —" Jamie began, but Harry ended on a groan: Gilderoy Lockhart was walking onto the stage, resplendent in robes of deep plum

and accompanied by none other than Snape, wearing his usual black.

Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me?

Can you all hear me? Excellent!

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions

—for full details, see my published works.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile.

"He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself

and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry — you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

"Wouldn't it be good if they finished each other off?" Ron muttered in Jamie's ear.

"BETS!" Jamie yelled," BETS ON THE WINNER. VOTED MOST LIKELY TO WIN BY ME IS PROFESSOR SNAPE, LONG DENIED THE DADA JOB HE WILL HAVE NOT ONLY SKILL BUT REVEN-"

"ENOUGH!" yelled Lockhart." I AM WORLD FAMOUS I HAVE DONE MANY THINGS YOU HAVEN'T I AM SMARTER, BETTER-LOOKING, AND OVERALL MUCH BETTER THAN YOU!" Lockhart had finally snapped. His face was red and he was panting. he composed himself in thirty seconds and was able to say," Double detention, my office, rest of the year.

Snape's upper lip was curling, but it looked like he had almost smiled again.

Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands, whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position,"

Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Jamie murmured, watching Snape baring his teeth.

"One— two — three —"

Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.

Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins cheered. Jamie magnified her voice and cheered and sang" ding dong lockhart is out lockhart is out lockhart is out ding dong-" But she was cut off by Snape. "more detentions with me Miss potter. saturday all day detentions for the rest of the year. you will be making potions for the hospital wing. Hermione was dancing on tiptoes. "Do you think he's all right?" she squealed through her fingers.

"Who cares?" said Jamie, Harry and Ron together.

Lockhart was getting unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his wavy hair was standing on end.

"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm — as you see, I've lost my wand — ah, thank you, Miss Brown — yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape,

but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy

—however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…"

Snape was looking murderous.

Possibly Lockhart had noticed, because he said, "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me —"

They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Lockhart teamed Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley, but Snape reached Harry and Ron first.

"Time to split up the dream team, I think," he sneered. "Weasley, you can partner Finnigan. Potter —"

Harry moved automatically toward Jamie and Hermione, who had tried to be partners. Jamie ended up with Malfoy, and Harry Pansy Parkinson.

"I don't think so," said Snape, smiling coldly. "Mr. Malfoy, come over here.

Let's see what you make of the famous Potter.

And you, Miss Granger — you can partner Miss Bulstrode."

Malfoy strutted over, smirking.

Behind him walked a Slytherin girl who reminded Jamie of a picture she'd seen in Holidays with Hags.

She was large and square and her heavy jaw jutted aggressively. Hermione gave her a weak smile that she did not return.

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform. "And bow!"

Jamie and Malfoy barely inclined their heads, not taking their eyes off each other.

"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents — only to disarm them — we don't want any accidents — one… two… three —"

jamie started on two like Malfoy, His spell still hit Jamie so hard she felt as though she'd been hit over the head with a saucepan.

She stumbled, but everything still seemed to be working, and wasting no more time, Jamie pointed her wand straight at Malfoy and shouted, "slappicus!"

A giant purple hand can out of her wand and repeatedly back handed and front handed Malfoy, or as Jamie had come to call him Puff the magic dragon.

"I said disarm only!" Lockhart shouted in alarm

over the heads of the battling crowd, as Malfoy sank to his knees; Jamie cast jelly legs and stopped because he was on the floor and couldn't get up. plus he was occupied with the giant hand b***h slapping him.

but this was a mistake; gasping for breath, Malfoy pointed his wand at Jamie's knees, choked, "Tarantallegra!" and the next second Her legs began to jerk around out of his control in a kind of quickstep.

"Stop! Stop!" screamed Lockhart, but Snape took charge. "Finite Incantatem!" he shouted; Jamie's feet stopped dancing, Malfoy stopped being slapped, and they were able to look up.

A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene.

Both Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Ron was holding up an ashen-faced Seamus, apologizing for whatever his broken wand had done;

but Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode were still moving; Millicent had Hermione in a headlock and Hermione was whimpering in pain;

both their wands lay forgotten on the floor. Jamie leapt forward and pulled Millicent off. It was difficult: She was a lot bigger than jamie was.

Harry was standing victorious with two wands in his hand. He seemed to have overpowered her with jelly legs and grabbed her wand.

"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you go, Macmillan…"

"Careful there, Miss Fawcett… Pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second,"

"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells,"

said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the hall. He glanced at Snape, whose black eyes glinted, and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair — Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you —"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Snape, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat.

"Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells.

We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Neville's round, pink face went pinker.

"How about Malfoy and Potter?" said Snape with a twisted smile.

"Excellent idea!" said Lockhart,

gesturing Jamie and Malfoy into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

"Now, Jamie," said Lockhart. "When Draco points his wand at you, you do this."

He raised his own wand, attempted a complicated sort of wiggling action,

and dropped it.

Snape smirked as Lockhart quickly picked it up, saying, "Whoops— my wand is a little overexcited—"

Snape moved closer to Malfoy, bent down, and whispered something in his ear. Malfoy smirked, too.

Jamie looked up nervously at Lockhart and said, "Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?"

"Scared?" muttered Malfoy, so that Lockhart couldn't hear him.

"You wish," said Jamie out of the corner of her mouth.

Lockhart cuffed her merrily on the shoulder. "Just do what I did, Jamei!"

"What, drop my wand?"

But Lockhart wasn't listening.

"Three— two — one — go!" he shouted.

Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "Serpensortia!"

The end of his wand exploded. Jamie watched, aghast, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between them, and raised itself, ready to strike.

There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor. Harry jumped on the stage, his wand out, standing right next to her.

"Don't move, Potter," said Snape lazily, clearly enjoying the sight of Jamie and Harry standing motionless, eye to eye with the angry snake. "I'll get rid of it…"

"Allow me!" shouted Lockhart. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack.

Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight toward Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

"leave him alone," yelled Harry in parsletounge. The snake seemed reluctant, so Jamie ran towards it, and grabbing the snake scolded it. The snake recoiled, repeatedly apologizing. satisfied that the snake would be polite from now on, Jamie put it around her neck and only then paid attention to everyone else.

She looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting to see Justin looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful — but certainly not angry and scared.

"What do you think you're playing at, scolding it for not getting me?" he shouted, and before Jamie or Harry could say anything, Justin had turned and stormed out of the hall.

Snape stepped forward, and tried to vanish the snake

"Don't kill it," said Jamie indignantly. Sanpe seemed to go miles away before snarling, " let me you foolish girl."

"No." And Jamie turned and walked out of the hall, hearing Snape assign her sunday detentions.

Ron, Hermione, and Harry caught up quickly.

Then Ron and Hermione pushed Harry and Jamie into armchairs and said, "You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?"

"I'm a what?" said Harry.

"A Parselmouth!" said Ron. "You can talk to snakes!"

"I know," said Harry. "I mean, that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once

—long story — but it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning to that was before I knew I was a wizard —"

"A boa constrictor told you it had never seen Brazil?" Ron repeated faintly.

"Yeah and I have a pet snake." said Jamie, pulling Des out of her pocket, and it looks like I now might have two.

"And So?" said Harry. "I bet loads of people here can do it."

"Oh, no they can't," said Ron. "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad."

"What's bad?" said Harry. "What's wrong with everyone? Listen, if I hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin —"

"Oh, that's what you said to it?"

"What d'you mean? You were there — you heard me —"

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," said Ron. "Snake language. You could have been saying anything — no wonder Justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something — it was creepy, you know —"

Harry gaped at him.

"I spoke a different language? But — I didn't realize — how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?"

Ron shook his head. Both he and Hermione were looking as though someone had died. Jamie couldn't see what was so terrible.

"D'you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off Justin's head?" she said. "What does it matter how I did it as long as Justin doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters," said Hermione, speaking at last in a hushed voice, "because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."

Jamie's and Harry's mouths fell open in sync.

"Exactly," said Ron. "And now the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great-great-grandson or something —"

"But I'm not," said Harry.

"You'll find that hard to prove," said Hermione. "He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be."

By next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last Herbology lesson of the term was canceled:

Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs. Norris and Colin Creevey.

Jamie and Harry fretted about this next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their time off to play a game of wizard chess.

"For heaven's sake, you two," said Hermione, exasperated, as one of Ron's bishops wrestled her knight off his horse and dragged him off the board. "Go and find Justin if it's so important to you."

So They got up and left through the portrait hole, wondering where Justin might be.

The castle was darker than it usually was in daytime because of the thick, swirling gray snow at every window. Shivering, They walked past classrooms where lessons were taking place, catching snatches of what was happening within. Professor McGonagall was shouting at someone who, by the sound of it, had turned his friend into a badger. Classic, Jamie stored it for later use.

Barely Resisting the urge to take a look, jAMie walked on by, both her and Harry thinking that Justin might be using his free time to catch up on some work, and deciding to check the library first.

A group of the Hufflepuffs who should have been in Herbology were indeed sitting at the back of the library, but they didn't seem to be working. Between the long lines of high bookshelves, Jamie could see that their heads were close together and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation. She couldn't see whether Justin was among them. She was walking toward them when something of what they were saying met her ears, and, exchanging looks with Harry, they paused to listen, hidden in the Invisibility section.

"So anyway," a stout boy was saying, "I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if hte Potters've marked him down as his next victim, it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while.

Of course, Justin's been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born. Justin actually told him he'd been down for Eton. That's not the kind of thing you bandy about with Slytherin's heir on the loose, is it?"

"You definitely think it is the Potters, then, Ernie?" said a girl with blonde pigtails anxiously.

"Hannah," said the stout boy solemnly, "They're Parselmouths. Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard.

Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes?

They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue."

There was some heavy murmuring at this, and Ernie went on, "Remember what was written on the wall? Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch's cat's attacked.

That first year, Creevey, was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him while he was lying in the mud. Next thing we know— Creevey's been attacked."

"They always seem so nice, though, Jamie always says hi to everyone, She always helps Neville in potions and Charms." said Hannah uncertainly, "and, well, he's the one who made You-Know-Who disappear. He can't be all bad, can he?"

Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, the Hufflepuffs bent closer, and the twins edged nearer so that they could catch Ernie's words.

"No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who.

I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens.

Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that."

He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a whisper, and said, "That's probably why You- Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn't want another Dark Lord competing with him.

I wonder what other powers Potter's been hiding?"

Jamie and Harry couldn't take anymore.

Clearing his throat loudly, he stepped out from behind the bookshelves, Jamie following. If she hadn't been feeling so angry, she would have found the sight that greeted her funny: Every one of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they had been Petrified by the sight of them, and the colour was draining out of Ernie's face.

"Hello," said Harry. "I'm looking for Justin Finch-Fletchley."

"Harry, you truly are an idiot, Hi Hannah," Jamie said.

"Justins been hiding from you in his dorm, what do you say, Hi I'm looking for Justin.

We wanted to apologize for yesterday," said Jamie sincerely." We realize how bad it looks and we," an angry hissing came from her pocket," we and the snake wanted to apologize.

Ernie bit his white lips and then, taking a deep breath and deciding to be stupid, said, "We were all there. We saw what happened."

"Then you noticed that after I spoke to it, the snake backed off?" said Harry.

"All I saw," said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake toward Justin, the snake not getting there fast enough and you (he pointed to Jamie) picking it up and scolding it or something for not getting him."

"I didn't chase it at him!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "It didn't even touch him!"

"It was a very near miss," said Ernie. "And in case you're getting ideas," he added hastily, "I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as anyone's, so —"

"-I don't care what sort of blood you've got!" said Harry fiercely. "Why would I want to attack Muggle-borns?"

"I've heard you hate those Muggles you live with," said Ernie swiftly.

"It's not possible to live with the Dursleys and not hate them," said Jamie. "I'd like to see you try it."

In sync, The two Potters turned on their heels and stormed out of the library, earning themselves a reproving glare from Madam Pince, who was polishing the gilded cover of a large spellbook.

They blundered up the corridor, barely noticing where they was going, they was in such a fury. The result was that they walked into something very large and solid, which knocked them both backward onto the floor and temporarily shaking out the anger.

"Oh, hello, Hagrid," Harry said, looking up.

Hagrid's face was entirely hidden by a woolly, snow-covered balaclava, but it couldn't possibly be anyone else, as he filled most of the corridor in his moleskin overcoat. A dead rooster was hanging from one of his massive, gloved hands.

"All righ', then?" he said, pulling up the balaclava so he could speak. "Why aren't yeh in class?"

"Canceled," said Jamie, getting up. "What're you doing in here?"

Hagrid held up the limp rooster.

"Second one killed this term," he explained. "It's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin Bugbear, an' I need the Headmaster's permission ter put a charm around the hen coop."

He peered more closely at them from under his thick, snowflecked eyebrows.

"Yeh sure yeh're all righ'? Yeh look all hot an' bothered —"

Jamie couldn't bring herself to repeat what Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs had been saying about them, and obviously Harry couldn't either, because they both stayed silent..

"It's nothing," they said.

"We'd better get going, Hagrid, it's Transfiguration next and we've got to pick up our books."

"Justin's been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born…"

They both stamped up the stairs and turned along another corridor, which was particularly dark; the torches had been extinguished by a strong, icy draft that was blowing through a loose windowpane. They were halfway down the passage when Harry tripped headlong over something lying on the floor.

Jamie turned to squint at what he'd fallen over and felt as though her stomach had dissolved.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying on the floor, rigid and cold, a look of shock frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

And that wasn't all. Next to him was another figure, the strangest sight Jamie had ever seen.

It was Nearly Headless Nick, no longer pearly-white and transparent, but black and smoky,

floating immobile and horizontal, six inches off the floor. His head was half off and his face wore an expression of shock identical to Justin's.

Harry got to his feet, his breathing fast and shallow, her heart doing a kind of drumroll against her ribs. She looked wildly up and down the deserted corridor and saw a line of spiders scuttling as fast as they could away from the bodies.

The only sounds were the muffled voices of teachers from the classes on either side.

They could run, and no one would ever know they had been there. But they couldn't just leave them lying here… they had to get help… Would anyone believe they hadn't had anything to do with this?

As they stood there, panicking, a door right next to Harry opened with a bang. Peeves the Poltergeist came shooting out.

"Why, it's potty wee Potters!" cackled Peeves, knocking Harry's glasses askew as he bounced past him. "What's the pottys up to? Why is the pottys lurking —"

Peeves stopped, halfway through a midair somersault. Upside down, he spotted Justin and Nearly Headless Nick. He flipped the right way up, filled his lungs and screamed, "ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!"

Crash — crash — crash — door after door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out. For several long minutes, there was a scene of such confusion that Justin was in danger of being squashed

and people kept standing in Nearly Headless Nick. Harry found himself pinned against the wall as the teachers shouted for quiet, Jamie was next to him. Professor McGonagall came running, followed by her own class, one of whom still had black-and-white-striped hair. Jamie snorted, she couldn't help herself.

She used her wand to set off a loud bang, which restored silence, and ordered everyone back into their classes. No sooner had the scene cleared somewhat than Ernie the Hufflepuff arrived, panting, on the scene.

"Caught in the act!" Ernie yelled, his face stark white, pointing his finger dramatically at Harry and Jamie.

"That will do, Macmillan!" said Professor McGonagall sharply.

Peeves was bobbing overhead, now grinning wickedly, surveying the scene; Peeves always loved chaos. As the teachers bent over Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, examining them, Peeves broke into song:

"Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done, You're killing off' students, you think it's good fun —"

"That's enough Peeves!" barked Professor McGonagall, and Peeves zoomed away backward, with his tongue out at Harry.

Justin was carried up to the hospital wing by Professor Flitwick and Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department, but nobody seemed to know what to do for Nearly Headless Nick. In the end, Professor McGonagall conjured a large fan out of thin air, which she gave to Ernie with instructions to waft Nearly Headless Nick up the stairs.

This Ernie did, fanning Nick along like a silent black hovercraft. This left jamie Harry and Professor McGonagall alone together.

"This way, Potters," she said.

"Professor," said Harry at once, "I swear I didn't —"

"This is out of my hands," said Professor McGonagall curtly.

They marched in silence around a corner and she stopped before a large and extremely ugly stone gargoyle.

"Lemon drop!" she said. This was evidently a password,

because the gargoyle sprang suddenly to life and hopped aside as the wall behind him split in two. Even full of dread for what was coming, Jamie couldn't fail to be amazed.

Behind the wall was a spiral staircase that was moving smoothly upward, like an escalator. As her, Harry and Professor McGonagall stepped onto it, Jamie heard the wall thud closed behind them. They rose upward in circles, higher and higher, until at last, slightly dizzy, Jamie saw a gleaming oak door ahead, with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.

This must be where Dumbledore lived.

They stepped off the stone staircase at the top, and Professor McGonagall rapped on the door. It opened silently and they entered. Professor McGonagall told Them to wait and left them there, alone.

Jamie looked around. One thing was certain: of all the teachers' offices Jamie had visited so far this year, which was quite an extensive list, Dumbledore's was by far the most interesting.

If she hadn't been scared out of her wits that they were about to be thrown out of school, she would have been very pleased to have a chance to look around it.

It was a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. A number of curious silver instruments stood on spindle legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke.

The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom were snoozing gently in their frames. There was also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tattered wizard's hat — the Sorting Hat.

"Go on," said Jamie, knowing what he wanted.

Harry put it on

He grabbed the point of the hat and pulled it off. It hung limply in his hand, grubby and faded.

Harry pushed it back onto its shelf.

"You're wrong," he said aloud to the still and silent hat. It didn't move.

Harry backed away, watching it. Then a strange, gagging noise behind him made him wheel around.

Jamie was already looking they weren't alone after all. Standing on a golden perch behind the door was a decrepit-looking bird that resembled a half-plucked turkey. Jamie stared at it and the bird looked balefully back, making its gagging noise again. Jamie reached a hand towards it and was surprised to find it was very soft, nno matter how ill it looked.

Its eyes were dull and, even as they watched, a couple more feathers fell out of its tail.

Jamie was just thinking that all they needed was for Dumbledore's pet bird to die while they was alone in the office with it, when the bird burst into flames.

Jamie yelled in shock and backed away into the desk. She looked feverishly around in case there was a glass of water somewhere but couldn't see one;

the bird, meanwhile, had become a fireball; it gave one loud shriek and next second there was nothing but a smoldering pile of ash on the floor.

The office door opened. Dumbledore came in, looking very somber.

"Professor," Harry gasped. "Your bird — I couldn't do anything — he just caught fire—"

To Jamie's astonishment, Dumbledore smiled.

"About time, too," he said. "He's been looking dreadful for days; I've been telling him to get a move on."

He chuckled at the stunned look on Harry's face and the dawning comprehension on Jamie's.

"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them to die and are reborn from the ashes.

Watch him…"

Jamie looked down in time to see a tiny, wrinkled, newborn bird poke its head out of the ashes. It was quite as ugly as the old one.

"It's a shame you had to see him on a Burning Day," said Dumbledore, seating himself behind his desk. "He's really very handsome most of the time, wonderful red and gold plumage.

Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers,

and they make highly faithful pets."

In the shock of Fawkes catching fire, Jamie had forgotten what they were there for, but it all came back to him as Dumbledore settled himself in the high chair behind the desk and fixed her with his penetrating, light-blue stare.

Before Dumbledore could speak another word, however, the door of the office flew open with an almighty bang and Hagrid burst in, a wild look in his eyes, his balaclava perched on top of his shaggy black head and the dead rooster still swinging from his hand.

"It wasn' them, Professor Dumbledore!" said Hagrid urgently. "I was talkin' ter them seconds before that kid was found, thye never had time, sir—"

Dumbledore tried to say something, but Hagrid went ranting on, waving the rooster around in his agitation, sending feathers everywhere.

"it can't've bin 'em, I'll swear it in front o' the Ministry o' Magic if I have to."

"Hagrid, I —"

"—yeh've got the wrong kids, sir, I know they never —"

"Hagrid!" said Dumbledore loudly. "I do not think that they attacked those people."

"Oh," said Hagrid, the rooster falling limply at his side. "Right. I'll wait outside then, Headmaster."

And he stomped out looking embarrassed.

"You don't think it was us, Professor?" Harry repeated hopefully as Dumbledore brushed rooster feathers off his desk.

"No, Harry, I don't," said Dumbledore, though his face was somber again. "But I still want to talk to you."

Jamie waited nervously while Dumbledore considered them, the tips of his long fingers together.

"I must ask you whether there is anything you'd like to tell me," he said gently. "Anything at all."

Jamie didn't know what to say. She thought of Malfoy shouting, "You'll be next, Mudbloods!" and of the Polyjuice Potion simmering away in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Then she thought of the disembodied voice she had heard twice and remembered what Ron had said: "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world." She thought, too, about what everyone was saying about them, and her growing dread thats he was somehow connected with Salazar Slytherin…

"No," said Harry and Jamie completely together. "There isn't anything, Professor…"

The double attack on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick turned what had hitherto been nervousness into real panic. Curiously, it was Nearly Headless Nick's fate that seemed to worry people most.

What could possibly do that to a ghost? people asked each other; what terrible power could harm someone who was already dead? There was almost a stampede to book seats on the Hogwarts Express so that students could go home for Christmas.

"At this rate, we'll be the only ones left," Ron told Jamie, Harry and Hermione. "Us, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. What a jolly holiday it's going to be."

Crabbe and Goyle, who always did whatever Malfoy did, had signed up to stay over the holidays, too.

But Jamie was glad that most people were leaving. She was tired of people skirting around her in the corridors, as though she was about to sprout fangs or spit poison; tired of all the muttering, pointing, and hissing as she passed.

Fred and George, however, found all this very funny.

They went out of their way to march ahead of them down the corridors, shouting, "Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through…"

Percy was deeply disapproving of this behaviour.

"It is not a laughing matter," he said coldly.

"Oh, get out of the way, Percy," said Fred. "They're in a hurry."

"Yeah, they're off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with their fanged servants," said George, chortling.

Ginny didn't find it amusing either.

"Oh, don't," she wailed every time Fred asked Harry loudly who he was planning to attack next, or when George pretended to ward Jamie off with a large clove of garlic when they met.

Jamei didn't mind at all;

it made her feel better that Fred and George, at least, thought the idea of her being Slytherin's heir was quite ludicrous. It wasn't just because George was paying a lot of attention to her. phht it couldn't be that :D.

But their antics seemed to be aggravating Draco Malfoy, who looked increasingly sour each time he saw them at it.

"It's because he's bursting to say it's really him," said Ron knowingly. "You know how he hates anyone beating him at anything, and you're getting all the credit for his dirty work."

"Not for long," said Hermione in a satisfied tone. "The Polyjuice Potion's nearly ready. We'll be getting the truth out of him any day now."


	7. Finished!

FINISHED! Third year is what I've been looking forward to most out of all the books.

I worked hard just for all of you, so at least review a little. Criticism, (the constructive type), compliments, or suggestions for later books, I don't care, reviewing makes me happy.

At last the term ended, and a silence deep as the snow on the grounds descended on the castle. Jamie found it peaceful, rather than gloomy, cold weather was her thing,

and enjoyed the fact that she, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys had the run of Gryffindor Tower,

which meant they could play Exploding Snap loudly without bothering anyone, and practice duelling in private.

Fred, George, and Ginny had chosen to stay at school rather than visit Bill in Egypt with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

Percy, who disapproved of what he termed their childish behaviour, didn't spend much time in the Gryffindor common room.

He had already told them pompously that he was only staying over Christmas because it was his duty as a prefect to support the teachers during this troubled time.

Christmas morning dawned, cold and white. Harry and Ron, the only ones left in their dormitory, were woken very early by Jamie and Hermione,

who burst in, both fully dressed and both carrying presents for them both and what looked like their own presents..

"Wake up," she said loudly, pulling back the curtains at the window.

"Hermione, Jamie— you're not supposed to be in here —" said Ron, shielding his eyes against the light.

"Merry Christmas to you, too," said Hermione, throwing him his present. "I've been up for nearly an hour, adding more lacewings to the potion. It's ready."

Harry sat up, suddenly wide awake.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," said Hermione, shifting Scabbers the rat so that she could sit down on the end of Ron's four-poster. Jamei laid down on the end of Harry's bed, laying across so her feet dangled on one end, her head practically touched the floor, and the blood rushed to her head.

"If we're going to do it, I say it should be tonight, " she said," I'm not taking it, if I do there won't be enough left for animaigus potion.

At that moment, Hedwig swooped into the room, carrying two very small packages in her beak.

"Hello," said Harry happily as she landed on his bed. "Are you speaking to me again?"

She nibbled his ear in an affectionate sort of way,

which was a far better present than the one that she had brought him, which turned out to be from the Dursleys.

They had sent Jamie and Harry each a toothpick and a note telling them to find out whether they'd be able to stay at Hogwarts for the summer vacation, too.

The rest of Jamie's Christmas presents were far more satisfactory.

Hagrid had sent her a large tin of treacle fudge, which Jamie decided to soften by the fire before eating;

Ron had given her a book called Fantastic Flying Techniques for all Positions, which was perfect for her varied quidditch styles and positions.

and Hermione had bought her a luxurious blue eagle-feather quill, which gave Jamie and Hermione a good five minutes of laughing, mostly because of the clueless looks on the boys faces after Jamie's first laugh.

Calmed down enough to open the last gift, Jamie opened the last present to find a new, purple, hand-knitted sweater from Mrs. Weasley and a large chocolate cake.

No one, not even someone dreading taking Polyjuice Potion later, could fail to enjoy Christmas dinner at Hogwarts.

The Great Hall looked magnificent. Not only were there a dozen frost-covered Christmas trees and thick streamers of holly and mistletoe crisscrossing the ceiling, but enchanted snow was falling, warm and dry, from the ceiling. Dumbledore led them in a few of his favourite carols,

Hagrid booming more and more loudly with every goblet of eggnog he consumed. Percy, who hadn't noticed that Fred had bewitched his prefect badge so that it now read "Pinhead," kept asking them all what they were sniggering at.

Jamie didn't even care that Draco Malfoy was making loud, snide remarks about her beautiful new sweater from the Slytherin table. With a bit of luck, Malfoy would be getting his comeuppance in a few hours' time.

Jamie, Harry and Ron had barely finished their third helpings of Christmas pudding when Hermione ushered them out of the hall to finalize their plans for the evening.

Jamie headed up to check the potion, it was perfect. after Harry Ron and hermione took the potion, she would be working hard for an hour.

Hermione arrived, and shortly after, Harry and Ron. THe four went into separate compartments, and took the potions. Harry and Ron left, and after a good five minutes of arguing, Jamie was permitted to see her.

Her face was covered in black fur. Her eyes had turned yellow and there were long, pointed ears poking through her hair.

"It was a cat hair" she wailed."

"When Harry and Ron get back, I'll take you to the hospital wing, but I have to work on the potion. About fifty minutes hard work later, the potion was completely sealed in the cauldron, shrunk, and had a special place in Jamie's pocket.

Harry and Ron came back panting.

"It was a c-cat hair!" Hermione howled. "M-Millicent Bulstrode m-must have a cat! And the p-potion isn't supposed to be used for animal transformations!"

"Uh-oh," said Ron.

"You'll be teased something dreadful," said Myrtle happily.

"It's okay, Hermione," said Harry quickly. "We'll take you up to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions…"

Moaning Myrtle sped them on their way with a hearty guffaw. "Wait till everyone finds out you've got a tail!"

Hermione remained in the hospital wing for several weeks.

There was a flurry of rumour about her disappearance when the rest of the school arrived back from their Christmas holidays, because of course everyone thought that she had been attacked.

So many students filed past the hospital wing trying to catch a glimpse of her that Madam Pomfrey took out her curtains again and placed them around Hermione's bed, to spare her the shame of being seen with a furry face.

Jamie, Harry and Ron went to visit her every evening.

When the new term started, they brought her each day's homework.

"If I'd sprouted whiskers, I'd take a break from work," said Ron, tipping a stack of books onto Hermione's bedside table one evening.

"Don't be silly, Ron, I've got to keep up," said Hermione briskly.

Her spirits were greatly improved by the fact that all the hair had gone from her face and her eyes were turning slowly back to brown. "I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.

"Nothing," said Jamie gloomily.

"I was so sure it was Malfoy," said Ron, for about the hundredth time.

"What's that?" asked Harry, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a get well card," said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron was too quick for her. He pulled it out, flicked it open, and read aloud:

"_To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award." _

Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

"You sleep with this under your pillow?"

But Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening dose of medicine.

"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?"

Ron said to Jamie and Harry as they left the infirmary and started up the stairs toward Gryffindor Tower.

Snape had given them so much homework, but Jamie was good at potions, so it didn't bother her. If Flitwick had assigned that much Homework... Jamie shuddered internally.

Ron was just saying he wished he had asked Hermione how many rat tails you were supposed to add to a Hair Raising Potion when an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.

"That's Filch," Harry muttered as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.

"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" said Ron tensely.

They stood still, their heads inclined toward Flich's voice, which sounded quite hysterical.

"Even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore —"

His footsteps receded along the out-of-sight corridor and they heard a distant door slam.

They poked their heads around the corner.

Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post: They were once again on the spot where Mrs. Norris had been attacked.

They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Now that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Now what's up with her?" said Ron.

"Let's go and see," said Jamie, and holding their robes over their ankles they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its OUT OF ORDER sign, ignored it as always, and entered.

Moaning Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before.

She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet. It was dark in the bathroom because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.

"What's up, Myrtle?" said Jamie.

"Who's that?" glugged Myrtle miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Jamie waded across to her stall and said, "Why would I throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor.

"Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…"

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," said Harry, reasonably. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

He had said the wrong thing. Myrtle puffed herself up and shrieked, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha, ha, ha! What a lovely game

"Who threw it at you, anyway?" asked Harry.

"I don't know… I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death,

and it fell right through the top of my head," said Myrtle, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out…"

Jamie, Harry and Ron looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there.

It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What?" said Harry.

"Are you crazy?" said Ron. "It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" said Harry and Jamie, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"

"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated Dad's told me — there was one that burned your eyes out.

And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives.

And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And —"

"All right, I've got the point," said Jamie.

The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy.

"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," he said, and he ducked around Ron and picked it up off the floor.

Jamie saw at once that it was a diary, and the faded year on the cover told her it was fifty years old. He opened it eagerly. On the first page he could just make out the name "T M. Riddle" in smudged ink.

"Hang on," said Ron, who had approached cautiously and was looking over Harry's shoulder. "I know that name… T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."

"How on earth d'you know that?" said Harry in amazement.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," said Ron resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over.

If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it, too."

Harry peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely blank. There wasn't the faintest trace of writing on any of them, not even Auntie Mabel's birthday, or dentist, half-past three.

"He never wrote in it," said Harry, disappointed.

"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" said Ron curiously.

Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.

"He must've been Muggle-born," said Harry thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road…"

"Well, it's not much use to you," said Ron. He dropped his voice. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."

Harry, however, pocketed it.

Hermione left the hospital wing, de-whiskered, tail-less, and furfree, at the beginning of February.

On her first evening back in Gryffindor Tower, Harry showed her T. M. Riddle's diary and told her the story of how they had found it.

"Oooh, it might have hidden powers," said Hermione enthusiastically, taking the diary and looking at it closely.

"If it has, it's hiding them very well," said Ron. "Maybe it's shy.

I don't know why you don't chuck it, Harry."

"I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it," said Jamie. "I wouldn't mind knowing how Riddle got an award for special services to Hogwarts either."

"Could've been anything," said Ron. "Maybe he got thirty O.W.L.s or saved a teacher from the giant squid. Maybe he murdered Myrtle; that would've done everyone a favour…"

But Jamie could tell from the arrested look on Hermione's face that she was thinking what she was thinking.

"What?" said Ron, looking from one to the other.

"Well, the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, wasn't it?" he said. "That's what Malfoy said."

"Yeah…" said Ron slowly.

"And this diary is fifty years old," said Hermione, tapping it excitedly.

"So?"

"Oh, Ron, wake up," snapped Hermione. "We know the person who opened the Chamber last time was expelled fifty years ago. We know T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago. Well, what if Riddle got his special award for catching the Heir of Slytherin?

His diary would probably tell us everything — where the Chamber is, and how to open it, and what sort of creature lives in it — the person who's behind the attacks this time wouldn't want that lying around, would they?"

"That's a brilliant theory, Hermione," said Ron, "with just one tiny little flaw. There's nothing written in his diary." for Hermiones sake Jamie didn't laugh.

But Hermione was pulling her wand out of her bag.

"It might be invisible ink!" she whispered.

She tapped the diary three times and said, _"Aparecium!" _

Nothing happened. Undaunted, Hermione shoved her hand back into her bag and pulled out what appeared to be a bright red eraser.

"It's a Revealer, I got it in Diagon Alley," she said.

She rubbed hard on January first. Nothing happened.

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to find in there," said Ron. "Riddle just got a diary for Christmas and couldn't be bothered filling it in."

Harry couldn't explain, even to Jamie, why he didn't just throw Riddle's diary away. But Jamie had a feeling he felt the same way about the diary. While Jamie was sure she had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to her, almost as though Riddle was a friend or enemy, or just someone she had met when she was very small, and had half-forgotten.

But this was absurd. She'd never had friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that.

Nevertheless, both Potters were determined to find out more about Riddle, so next day at break, they headed for the trophy room to examine Riddle's special award, accompanied by an interested Hermione and a thoroughly unconvinced Ron, who told them he'd seen enough of the trophy room to last him a lifetime.

Riddle's burnished gold shield was tucked away in a corner cabinet. It didn't carry details of why it had been given to him ("Good thing, too, or it'd be even bigger and I'd still be polishing it," said Ron).

However, they did find Riddle's name on an old Medal for Magical Merit, and on a list of old Head Boys.

"He sounds like Percy," said Ron, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"Prefect, Head Boy…probably top of every class —"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Hermione in a slightly hurt voice.

The sun had now begun to shine weakly on Hogwarts again. Inside the castle, the mood had grown more hopeful. There had been no more attacks since those on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, and Madam Pomfrey was pleased to report that the Mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning that they were fast leaving childhood.

"The moment their acne clears up, they'll be ready for repotting again," Jamie heard her telling Filch kindly one afternoon. "And after that, it won't be long until we're cutting them up and stewing them.

You'll have Mrs. Norris back in no time."

Perhaps the Heir of Slytherin had lost his or her nerve, thought Jamie. It must be getting riskier and riskier to open the Chamber of Secrets, with the school so alert and suspicious.

Perhaps the monster, whatever it was, was even now settling itself down to hibernate for another fifty years…

Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff didn't take this cheerful view. He was still convinced that Harry and/ or Jamie was the guilty one, that they had "given themselves away" at the Duelling Club.

Peeves wasn't helping matters; he kept popping up in the crowded corridors singing "Oh, Potter, you rotter…" now with a dance routine to match.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think he himself had made the attacks stop. He was an idiot, and Jamie didn't pay attention in his class. once she had taken a marker(A/N just pretend she has one) drawn eyes on her eyelids and fallen asleep. Lockhart hadn't noticed.

Jamie went down the Great hall on valentines day and thought she'd gone through the wrong doors.

The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers.

Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling.

Jamie went over to the Gryffindor table, where Ron was sitting looking sickened, and Hermione seemed to have been overcome with giggles. Jamie began surrepitiously turning everything red and gold for gryffindor, the hearts changing into lions. Some older years quickly caught on and copied her.

Harry then arrived, and they asked at the same time"What's going on?"

Ron pointed to the teachers' table, apparently too disgusted to speak.

Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations,

was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where she sat, Jamie could see a muscle going in Minnie'scheek.

Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards!

Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all — and it doesn't end here!"

Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion!

Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion!

And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. He was obviously hiding ostrich-style from Lockhart. I can't see you you can't see me I can't see you you can't see me I can't see you you can't see me I can't see you you can't see me I can't see you you can't see me I can't see you you can't see me.

Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison. hmm, with any luck, malfoy would ask.

"Please, Hermione, tell me you weren't one of the forty-six," said Ron as they left the Great Hall for their first lesson. Hermione suddenly became very interested in searching her bag for her schedule and didn't answer. She knew he was a fraud, she just didn't want to admit she was wrong.

All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers,

and late that afternoon as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of the dwarfs caught up with Harry.

"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!"

shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry. Jamie got out her camera.

Harry tried to escape.

The dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins, and reached him before he'd gone two paces.

"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.

"Not here," Harry hissed, trying to escape.

"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag and pulling him back.

"Let me go!" Harry snarled, tugging.

With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment, and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over everything.

Harry scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf started singing, causing something of a holdup in the corridor. Jamie would have helped, but the moment was too good not to catch on camera. She had discovered that if she held down the button for a whole scene of trouble, the scene would play over and over again. Her camera was almost full with the recorded pranks of the year.

"What's going on here?" came the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. Harry started stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped bag, desperate to get away before Malfoy could hear his musical valentine.

"What's all this commotion?" said another familiar voice as Percy Weasley arrived.

Losing his head, Harry tried to make a run for it,

but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.

"Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles.

"Here is your singing valentine:

_His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, _

_His hair is as dark as a blackboard, _

_I wish he was mine, _

_he's really divine, _

_The hero who conquered the Dark Lord _

Harry obviously would have given all the gold in Gringotts to evaporate on the spot. Trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, he got up, his feet numb from the weight of the dwarf, as Percy Weasley did his best to disperse the crowd, some of whom were crying with mirth cough cough Jamie cough.

"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now," he said, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you, Malfoy —"

Harry, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Jamie realized that he'd got Riddle's diary.

"Give that back," said Harry quietly.

"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" said Malfoy, who obviously hadn't noticed the year on the cover and thought he had Harry's own diary.

A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.

"Hand it over, Malfoy," said Percy sternly.

"When I've had a look," said Malfoy, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.

Percy said, "As a school prefect —" but Harry had lost his temper.

He pulled out his wand and shouted, _"Expelliarmus!"_

and just as Snape had disarmed Lockhart,

so Malfoy found the diary shooting out of his hand into the air. Ron, grinning broadly, caught it.

"Harry!" said Percy loudly. "No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"

But Jamie was proud and didn't care, he was one-up on Malfoy, and that was worth five points from Gryffindor any day. Malfoy was looking furious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled spitefully after her, "I don't think Potter liked your valentine much!"

Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class. Jamie caught up to her and said," Ginny, It's okay we'll figure out a way for my idiot of a brother to like you in no time."

Smiling back, ginny said," And I'll help you and Hermione with my brothers." Then she ran before Jamie could respond, laughing loudly. Was she that obvious? At least guys weren't as smart about this stuff as girls. Jamie rushed out after her and caught up with her friends.

It wasn't until they had reached Professor Flitwick's class that Harry noticed something rather odd about Riddle's diary. All his other books were drenched in scarlet ink. The diary, however, was as clean as it had been before the ink bottle had smashed all over it.

He pointed this out to Jamie, and Jamie agreed to follow him invisibly into his dorm when he would most likely go to bed early from his own personal love song being sung over and over.

Harry sat on his four-poster with Jamie and flicked through the blank pages, not one of which had a trace of scarlet ink on it.

Then he pulled a new bottle out of his bedside cabinet, dipped his quill into it, and dropped a blot onto the first page of the diary.

The ink shone brightly on the paper for a second and then, as though it was being sucked into the page, vanished.

Excited, Harry loaded up his quill a second time and wrote, "My name is Harry Potter." Jamie watched, extremely interested.

The words shone momentarily on the page and they, too, sank without trace. Then, at last, something happened.

Oozing back out of the page, in his very own ink, came words Harry had never written.

"_Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?_"

These words, too, faded away, but not before Harry had started to scribble back.

"Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."

They waited eagerly for Riddle's reply.

"_Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink_.

_But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read_."

"What do you mean?" Harry scrawled, blotting the page in his excitement.

"_I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_."

"That's where I am now," Harry wrote quickly. "I'm at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff's been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"

Her heart was hammering. Riddle's reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier, as though he was hurrying to tell all he knew.

"_Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets_.

_In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. _

_I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled_.

_But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. _

_They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned_."

Harry nearly upset his ink bottle in his hurry to write back. Jamie grabbed a quill and wrote too.

"It's happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?"

And Jamie," Hi i'm Jamie Potter. please tell us."

"_I can show you, if you like_, both of you" came Riddle's reply. "_You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him_."

Jamie and Harry hesitated, their quills suspended over the diary. What did Riddle mean? How could he be taken inside somebody else's memory? They glanced at each other and knew what they should do.

"OK."

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Jamie saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen. Her hands trembling slightly, she raised the book to press her eye against the little window, and befores he knew what was happening, she was tilting forward; the window was widening, she felt her body leave Harry's bed, and she was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of colour and shadow. Harry fell onto her.

She knew immediately where thye was. This circular room with the sleeping portraits was Dumbledore's office —but it wasn't Dumbledore who was sitting behind the desk.

A wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. Who the hell was he?

"I'm sorry," he said shakily. "I didn't mean to butt in —"

But the wizard didn't look up. He continued to read, frowning slightly. Harry drew nearer to his desk and stammered, "Er — I'll just go, shall I?"

Still the wizard ignored him. He didn't seem even to have heard him.

"I don't think he can hear us," Jamie whispered," I think it's like we aren't reall here, it's just a , whats the word, memory."

The wizard folded up the letter with a sigh, stood up, walked past them without glancing, and went to draw the curtains at his window.

The sky outside the window was ruby-red; it seemed to be sunset. The wizard went back to the desk, sat down, and twiddled his thumbs, watching the door.

Jamie looked around the office. No Fawkes the phoenix — no whirring silver contraptions.

This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it.

There was a knock on the office door.

"Enter," said the old wizard in a feeble voice.

A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat.

A silver prefect's badge was glinting on his chest. He was much taller than Harry, but he, too, had jet-black hair.

"Ah, Riddle," said the Headmaster.

"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" said Riddle. He looked nervous. Jamie didn't like him immediately. EVen in a memory, there was a faint black and red aura around him when no one else had one.

"Sit down," said Dippet. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."

"Oh," said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.

"My dear boy," said Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"

"No," said Riddle at once. "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that — to that—"

"You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?" said Dippet curiously.

"Yes, sir," said Riddle, reddening slightly.

"You are Muggle-born?"

"Half-blood, sir," said Riddle.

"Muggle father, witch mother."

"And are both your parents —?"

"My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me — Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."

Dipper clucked his tongue sympathetically.

"The thing is, Tom," he sighed, "Special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…"

"You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle, and Harry's heart leapt, and he moved closer, scared of missing anything.

"Precisely," said the headmaster. "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy…

the death of that poor little girl…

You will be safer by far at your orphanage.

As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the — er — source of all this unpleasantness…"

Riddle's eyes had widened.

"Sir — if the person was caught — if it all stopped —"

"What do you mean?" said Dippet with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?"

"No, sir," said Riddle quickly.

But Jamie was sure it was the same sort of "no" that they had given Dumbledore.

Dippet sank back, looking faintly disappointed.

"You may go, Tom…"

Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Harry followed him.

Down the moving spiral staircase they went, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stopped, and so did they, watching him. Jamie could tell that Riddle was doing some serious thinking, and she didn't like it. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.

Then, as though he had suddenly reached a decision, he hurried off, Jamie and Harry gliding noiselessly behind him. Tom was unusually quiet as didn't see another person until they reached the entrance hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and a beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.

"What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?"

Jamie gaped at the wizard. He was none other than a fifty-year-younger Dumbledore.

"I had to see the headmaster, sir," said Riddle.

"Well, hurry off to bed," said Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the kind of penetrating stare Harry knew so well.

"Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since…"

He sighed heavily, bade Riddle good night, and strode off. Riddle watched him walk out of sight and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with the twins in hot pursuit.

But to Jamie's disappointment, Riddle led them not into a hidden passageway or a secret tunnel but to the very dungeon in which they had Potions with Snape.

The torches hadn't been lit, and when Riddle pushed the door almost closed, Harry could only just see him, standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside.

It felt to Jamie that they were there for at least an hour, but it was probably more fifteen minutes. All she could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue, wisps of red aura still around him. And just when Jamie had stopped feeling expectant and tense and started wishing she could return to the present, just like Harry was, she heard something move beyond the door.

Someone was creeping along the passage. She heard whoever it was pass the dungeon where Harry, her and Riddle were hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, Jamie walking behind him, and Harry tiptoeing behind her, forgetting that he couldn't be heard.

For perhaps five minutes they followed the footsteps, until Riddle stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. Harry heard a door creak open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper.

"C'mon… gotta get yeh outta here… C'mon now… in the box…"

Hagrid. Jamie refused to believe it. It wasn't Hagrid

Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. She could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.

"Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.

The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.

"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"

Riddle stepped closer.

"It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."

"'N at d'yeh —"

"I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets.

I suppose you just let it out for exercise and —"

"It never killed no one!" said the large boy, backing against the closed door. From behind him, Jamie could hear a funny rustling and clicking.

"Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving yet closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered…"

"It wasn't him!" roared the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"

"Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing out his wand.

His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Jamie let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone.

A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers — but spiders couldn't petrify. it wasn'r possible. and Slytherin would use the grandest snake he could find. So there were two monsters, and the wrong one was caught.

Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NOOOOOO!"

The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Jamie felt herself falling and, with a crash, she landed spread-eagled on his four-poster in the Gryffindor dormitory, Harry landed on Rons bed, Riddle's diary lying open on his stomach.

Before either had time to regain their breath, the dormitory door opened and Ron came in.

"There you are," he said.

Harry sat up. He was sweating and shaking. Jamie realized she was the same

"What's up?" said Ron, looking at them with concern.

"It was Hagrid, Ron. Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago." Jamie opened her mouth to argue.

Jamie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had always known that Hagrid had an unfortunate liking for large and monstrous creatures.

During their first year at Hogwarts he had tried to raise a dragon in his little wooden house, and it would be a long time before they forgot the giant, three-headed dog he'd christened "Fluffy."

And if, as a boy, Hagrid had heard that a monster was hidden somewhere in the castle, Jamie was sure he'd have gone to any lengths for a glimpse of it.

He'd probably thought it was a shame that the monster had been cooped up so long, and thought it deserved the chance to stretch its many legs;

Jamie could just imagine the thirteen-year-old Hagrid trying to fit a leash and collar on it, but it was the wrong monster, and the wrong person. but apparently, not matter how much Harry Ron and Hermione wanted it to be true, they couldn't agree with her. jamie had looked at Riddle's diary and seen that it didn't have an aura. Everything had an aura. If jamie aquinted her eyes, the world would go by in a flash of color, but this diary had nothing.

...

"Do you think we should go and _ask _Hagrid about it all?"

"That'd be a cheerful visit," said Ron. "'Hello, Hagrid. Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?'"

In the end, they decided that they would not say anything to Hagrid unless there was another attack, and as more and more days went by with no whisper from the disembodied voice, they became hopeful that they would never need to talk to him about why he had been expelled.

It was now nearly four months since Justin and Nearly Headless Nick had been Petrified,

and nearly everybody seemed to think that the attacker, whoever it was, had retired for good. Peeves had finally got bored of his "Oh, Potter, you rotter" song,

Ernie Macmillan asked Harry quite politely to pass a bucket of leaping toadstools in Herbology one day,

and in March several of the Mandrakes threw a loud and raucous party in greenhouse three.

This made Professor Sprout very happy.

"The moment they start trying to move into each other's pots, we'll know they're fully mature," she told Harry. "Then we'll be able to revive those poor people in the hospital wing."

The second years were given something new to think about during their Easter holidays. The time had come to choose their subjects for the third year, a matter that Hermione, at least, took very seriously.

"… it could affect our whole future," she told Harry and Ron as they pored over lists of new subjects, marking them with checks.

"I just want to give up Potions," said Harry.

"We can't," said Ron gloomily. "We keep all our old subjects, or I'd've ditched Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"But that's very important!" said Hermione, shocked.

"Not the way Lockhart teaches it," said Ron. "I haven't learned anything from him except not to set pixies loose."

Neville Longbottom had been sent letters from all the witches and wizards in his family, all giving him different advice on what to choose. Confused and worried, he sat reading the subject lists with his tongue poking out, asking people whether they thought Arithmancy sounded more difficult than the study of Ancient Runes.

Dean Thomas, who, like Harry, had grown up with Muggles, ended up closing his eyes and jabbing his wand at the list, then picking the subjects it landed on.

Hermione took nobody's advice but signed up for everything. Jamie followed. She was confident she could do it. She was smart, brilliant at transfiguration and potions, and while she may not be the best at charms, she actually spent most of her homework time on charms. She could do it. All of it. And she wouldn't even quit a class. Madam Pomfery came and asked her if she would like to come take a class period with her and learn to heal. Jamie readily agreed.

Gryffindor's next Quidditch match would be against Hufflepuff. Wood was insisting on team practices every night after dinner,

so that Harry and Jamie barely had time for anything but Quidditch and homework.

However, the training sessions were getting better, or at least drier, and the evening before Saturday's match she went up to his dormitory to drop off "her" broomstick feeling Gryffindor's chances for the Quidditch cup had never been better.

But then she found out riddle's Diary had been stolen.

Her and Hermione were reading Ancient Runes made easy when they were told.

"But — only a Gryffindor could have stolen — nobody else knows our password —"

"Exactly," said Harry.

They woke the next day to brilliant sunshine and a light, refreshing breeze.

"Perfect Quidditch conditions!" said Wood enthusiastically at the Gryffindor table, loading the team's plates with scrambled eggs. "Harry, buck up there, you need a decent breakfast."

Harry had been staring down the packed Gryffindor table, wondering if the new owner of Riddle's diary was right in front of his eyes. Jamie knew him too well. She knew that he didn't want to go to minnie because he would have to bring up Hagrid being expelled. it was just something that came with being a twin she guessed. She had been more upset at ernie for being mean to harry than she was about Ernie being mean to her.

As they left the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione to go and collect their Quidditch things, They heard it again

"_Kill this time… let me rip… tear…"_

They shouted aloud and Ron and Hermione both jumped away from him in alarm.

"The voice!" said Harry, looking over his shoulder. "I just heard it again — didn't you?"

Ron shook his head, wide-eyed. Hermione, however, clapped a hand to her forehead.

"Harry — I think I've just understood something! I've got to go to the library Come on Jamie!"

And they sprinted away, up the stairs.

"It's got to be a giant snake. I'm going to ask Myrtle if she knows anything. I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. The ghosts are bound to know something."

Jamie ran to Myrtle's bathroom, thinking of what to say to open the conversation. If she came right out, Myrtle would get upset. Hmmm, Flattery. Ghosts like to talk about how they died, so.

"Myrtle, how did you die?" Asked Jamie

Myrtle certainly looked flattered," even though it was fifty years ago(Jamie's heart skipped a beat) I still remember it well. Olive Hornby was making fun of my glasses, and I came in here to cry and possibly kill myself when a boy came in and started speaking a strange langue, almost a hissing spitting sound. I opened the door to tell him to use his own bathroom, when I saw a big pair of great yellow eyes looking at me, and then i died."

Without even bothering to say good bye, Jamie went to the library. Telling Hermione what she had found out, Hermione looked as excited.

"So it's something reptalian with yellow eyes that kills people with a look."

"It's a basilisk Hermione. Ever since I saw the memory I've been looking up types of dangerous snakes. and the entrance is probably in her bathroom, the heir was taking it back to it's place. Like you said it's the last place anyone would look." They quickly located the page and hermione ripped it out and stuffed it in her hand.

"What are you doing?"came a voice behind them.

Then Jamie Heard it _theres someone there blood Blood BLOOD!_

"Do you have a mirror," Jamie yelled

Yes said the prefect near them suspiciously. everyone look at it do not take you eyes away. The monster's here. The girls eyes widened and she grabbed the mirror and everyone held it and Jamie floated away.

She was in a little cottage It was inexplicably familliar. Deja vu to the extreme. There was a man that looked a lot like Harry. He was older and had a longer nose and Hazel eyes. It was James Potter. Her father and namesake.

"Daddy's little girl," he said," I love you" at his feet was a golden wolf with hazel eyes. Her animaigus form.

And she jolted away before she could say anything and she was brought backto real life. She was in the hospital wing. Hermione was there, so was the prefect.

"Where's Harry Ron and Ginny," She joked, "Am I not

important enough?"

"Ginny was taken into the chamber, and we are fairly positive that harry and Ron went after her." Jamie was out of the bed bfore the sentence was finished. A beautiful bird grabbed her, and Jamie recognized the aura of Fawkes. There was music playing, It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Her scalp and made her heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Jamie felt it vibrating inside her own ribs, and she was filled with courage flames erupted and riding on a crimson bird the size of a swan, which was piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle, the sorting hat.

A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, gently put Jamie down, then shared Harry and Jamie with a talon on each

The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Jamie's cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle.

"That's a phoenix." said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.

"_Fawkes?_" Harry breathed, and he felt the bird's golden claws squeeze his shoulder gently. Jamie didn't know how, but she could feel what Harry felt. It was like their connection was heightned.

"And _that _—"said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat —"

Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Harry's feet.

Riddle began to laugh, High and cold. He laughed so hard that the dark chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once — Jamie hated him suddenly. It was an inexplicable feeling. She hated him so much. Harry looked at her in shock and she knew the connection was two way. She knew he was completely filled with relief.

"This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird a simplelittle girl, and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?" Jamie's body filled with rage that was not her own. It was Harry, furious for the simple little girl comment. Jamie reached fo rher wand, but it was gone. I was petrified and I left the wand in the hospital wing. Harry obviously couldn't understand words, just like she couldn't, but he got the gist of no wand.

"To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly. "Twice — in _your_past, in _my_ future — we have met. And twice I failed to kill you.

_How did you survive?_ Tell me everything. The longer you talk," he added softly, "the longer you stay alive."

Harry and Jamie were thinking fast, weighing their chances. Riddle had the wand. Jamie and Harry, had Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, neither of which would be much good in a duel. It looked bad, all right… but Ginny must be saved, for Jamie had seen her on the floor, and now Her rage fueled Harry, and Harry knew what she was mad about, and his rage grew, and they were each filled with the all rage and courage of two immensely courageous hotheads.

"No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly.

"I don't know myself. But I know why you couldn't _kill_ me. Because my mother died to save me. My common _Muggle-born_ mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage.

"She stopped you killing me. And I've seen the real you, I saw you last year.

You're a wreck. You're barely alive. That's where all your power got you. You're in hiding. You're ugly, you're foul —"

Jamie spat at Riddle's feet

Riddle's face contorted. Then he forced it into an awful horrible smile. his aura tried to choke off Her and Harry's auras, which at the moment were bright Gold and spread across the whole disgusting cave. Gold? but... Fawkes, Fawkes ahd temporarily changed the auras.

"So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful countercharm. I can see now… there is nothing special about you, after all.

I wondered, you see. There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only three Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself.

We even look something alike not so much the girl…but after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me.

That's all I wanted to know."

The two connected stood, tense, waiting for Riddle to raise his wand. But Riddle's twisted smile was widening again.

"Now, Harry, girl, (the anger mounted) I'm going to teach you a little lesson.

Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him…"

He cast an amused eye over Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, then walked away. They watched Riddle stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed — but they understood what he was saying…

"_Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four_."

They wheeled around to look up at the statue, Fawkes swaying on their shoulders.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, They saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.

And something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.

They backed away until they hit the dark Chamber wall, shut their eyes tight and grabbed each othe. Fawkes took flight. but could Fwkes beat a basilisk?

Something huge hit the stone floor of the Chamber. They felt it shudder —they knew what was happening, they could sense it, could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth.

Then thye heard Riddle's hissing voice:

"_Kill him_."

The basilisk was moving toward Them; every instinct in Jamie's body screamed to push Harry out of the way and run after him, and Eyes still tightly shut, They began to run blindly sideways, their hands outstretched, feeling his way, hitting in the same pattern on the wall without realizing — Voldemort was laughing.

Harry tripped. He fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood — the serpent was barely feet from him, she could hear it coming —Jamie tried to lift him up but...

There was a loud, explosive spitting sound right above them, and then something heavy hit Harry so hard that he was smashed into the wall.

Waiting for fangs to sink through his body she heard more mad hissing, something thrashing wildly off the pillars.

Shee couldn't help it, neither could Harry, as one they opened their eyes wide enough to squint at what was going on.

The enormous serpent, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, had raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head was weaving drunkenly between the pillars.

As They trembled, ready to close their eyes if it turned, they saw what had distracted the snake.

Fawkes was soaring around its head, and the basilisk was snapping furiously at him with fangs long and thin as sabers Fawkes dived. His long golden beak sank out of sight and a sudden shower of dark blood spattered the floor.

The snake's tail thrashed, narrowly missing Jamie, and before they could shut his eyes, it turned — They looked straight into its face and saw that its eyes, both its great, bulbous yellow eyes, had been punctured by the phoenix; blood was streaming to the floor, and the snake was spitting in agony.

"_NO!_"Jamie heard Riddle screaming. "_LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM. KILL HIM!_"

The blinded serpent swayed, confused, still deadly. Fawkes was circling its head, piping his eerie song, jabbing here and there at its scaly nose as the blood poured from its ruined eyes.

"Help me, help me," They muttered wildly, "someone — anyone…"

The snake's tail whipped across the floor again. Harry ducked. Something soft hit her face.

The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Jamie's arms.

She put it on her head and screamed aloud "help us."

There was no answering voice. Instead, the hat contracted, as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly.

Something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of Jamie's head, almost knocking her out.

Stars winking in front of her eyes, she grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it. She took it off and A sword flew out and landed in Harry's Hand. It had a beautiful red blade and giant golden stones the size of eggs in it. a matching red scabbard appeared at Harry's waist. Jamie felt a weight at her hip and saw a Golden Scabbard at her's. The sorting hat shot out two more swards, one was golden with egg sized rubies It was surprisingly light and went into Jamie's hand, the other landed by Ginny in a red and Gold scabbard. "Riddle Cna't get that sword. Go to Ginny if you lose your's." said the hat's voice.

"_KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU. SNIFF — SMELL HIM_."

They were on their feet, ready. The basilisk's head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to facet hem. She could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow them whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous —

It lunged blindly — They dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry's side. They each rasied the sword in both hands and threw their whole weight behind the hit as the basilisk aimed true.

But as warm blood drenched Jamie's arms, she felt a searing pain just above her elbow. dimly she could feel the same in her other shoulder, and she figured that was her feeling Harry's pain due to the connection.

One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into their arms and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.

Harry slid down the wall. Jamie followed. They gripped the fang that was spreading poison through their own bodies and wrenched it out of htheir arms.

But she knew it was too late.

White-hot pain was spreading slowly and steadily from the wound. Even as she dropped the fang and watched her own blood soaking her robes, her vision went foggy. The Chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull colour.

A patch of scarlet swam past, and Jamie heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.

"Fawkes," said Harry thickly. "You were fantastic, Fawkes…"

"Fawkes," echoed Jamie.

Their matching wounds lay next to each other. Fawkes began to cry. Somehow it landed on both at the same time.

She could hear echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of her.

"You're dead, Harry and Jamie Potter," said Riddle's voice above him. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potters? He's crying."

Jamie blinked. Fawke's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were tstill trickling down the glossy feathers.

"I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Potters. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

Healing powers and phoenix something important connecting the two. Jamie paid no attention until...

_If this is dying_, thought Jamie, _it's not so bad_.

Even the pain was leaving her…

tears. Phoenix tears! Her and Harry would be fine! The wound was already gone

"Get away, bird," said Riddle's voice suddenly. "Get away from them — I said, _get away_—"

Jamie raised her head. Riddle was pointing Harry's wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun, and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet.

"Phoenix tears…"said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry's arm. "Of course… healing powers… I forgot…"

He looked into Harry's face. "But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter… you and me…"

He raised the wand…

Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes had soared back overhead and something fell into Harry's lap — _the diary_.

For a split second, both Harry and Jamie, and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.

There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream.

Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry's hands, flooding the floor.

Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then —

He had gone.

Harry's wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady _drip drip _of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.

Shaking all over, Jamie and Harry pulled each other up. His head was spinning as though he'd just traveled miles by Floo powder. Slowly, he gathered together his wand and the Sorting Hat, and, with a huge tug, retrieved the glittering sword from the roof of the basilisk's mouth. Jamie had dashed, grabbed the sword, and rushed to Ginny, who was stirring. She sat up.

"Ginny," Jamie cried, tears rolling down her cheeks, " I thought you were dead, I thought you were gone."

Ginny began to cry as well.

"Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I _c-couldn't_ say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn't mean to— R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — _how_ did you kill that — that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary—"

"What happened to you, why'd he take you."

"I did it. I did it all Jamie," Ginny wailed," I'm so sorry, will you forgive me. Riddle made me do it. I had no control. You could have died all, all because i wrote in that diary."

"Ginny, You are still one of my best friends. It's not your fault. I'm still your friend. and trust me, that wasn't a diary, that was a piece of sh*t.

" It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him _and_ the basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here —"

"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Jamie helped her to her feet, still hugging her.

"I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and — _w-what'llMum and Dad say?_"

Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Jamie gently urged Ginny forward; they stepped over the motionless coils of the dead basilisk, through the echoing gloom, and back into the tunnel. Jamie heard the stone doors close behind them with a soft hiss.

After a few minutes' progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Jamie's ears.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"

Jamie had forgotten about Ron.

She heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rock fall.

"_Ginny!_" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?"

Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.

"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry, squeezing through himself.

"How come you've got a sword?" said Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon in Harry's hand.

Then he noticed Jamie. He threw his arms around Her and said," But I thougt you were petrified."

"I was, but I was unpetrified and then Fawkes brought me. the swords, we we'll explain later"

Jamie kept her arm around Ginny, being supportive and trying to comfort her.

"But —"

"Later," Harry said shortly.

"Where's Lockhart?"

"Lockhart?"Asked Jamie with intrest.

"Back there," said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. "He's in a bad way. Come and see."

Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness, they walked all the way back to the mouth of the pipe. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting there, humming placidly to himself.

"His memory's gone," said Ron. "The Memory Charm backfired.

Hit him instead of us. Hasn't got a clue who he is,

or where he is, or who we are. I told him to come and wait here. He's a danger to himself."

Lockhart peered good-naturedly up at them all.

"Hello," he said. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"

"No," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.

Jamie would have died laughing, but she had a friens to care for.

Harry bent down and looked up the long, dark pipe.

"Have you thought how we're going to get back up this?" he said to Ron.

Ron shook his head, but Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.

"He looks like he wants you to grab hold…" said Ron, looking perplexed. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —"

"Fawkes," said Harry, "isn't an ordinary bird." He turned quickly to the others. "We've got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron's hand. Jamie grab her other Hand, Professor Lockhart —"

"He means you," said Ron sharply to Lockhart.

"You hold Ron's other hand —"

Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry's robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes's strangely hot tail feathers.

An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through her whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. jamie could hear Lockhart dangling below her, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!"

The chill air was whipping through Jamie's hair, and before she'd stopped enjoying the ride, it was over

— all four of them were hitting the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and as Lockhart straightened his hat,

the sink that hid the pipe was sliding back into place.

Myrtle goggled at them.

"You're alive," she said blankly to Harry.

"There's no need to sound so disappointed," he said grimly, wiping flecks of blood and slime off his glasses.

"Oh, well… I'd just been thinking… if you had died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver.

"Urgh!" said Ron as they left the bathroom for the dark, deserted corridor outside. "Harry! I think Myrtle's grown _fond_ of you! You've got competition, Ginny!"

But tears were still flooding silently down Ginny's face. Jamie shot ron a look and put her arm around ginny, being as comforting as possible.

"Where now?" said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny. Harry pointed.

Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor Minnie's office.

Harry knocked and pushed the door open.

For a moment there was silence as Jamie, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Potter'ss case) blood.

Then there was a scream.

"_Ginny!_"

It was Mrs. Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. She leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter.

Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest.

Fawkes went whooshing past jamie's ear and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder, just as Jamie found herself, Harry, and Ron being swept into Mrs. Weasley's tight embrace.

"You saved her! You saved her! _How _did you do it?"

"I think we'd all like to know that," said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Mrs. Weasley let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the golden-encrusted sword and red scabbard, and what remained of Riddle's diary. Jamie laid the golden sword and the red and gold sword and scabbard, along with her scabbard on the desk

Then hharry started telling them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: He told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that he was hearing a basilisk in the pipes; how he and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the basilisk had died; how he had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom…

"Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted him as he paused, "so you found out where the entrance was — breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add —

but how on _earth_ did you all get out of there alive, Potter?"

So Harry, his voice now growing hoarse from all this talking, told them about Fawkes's timely arrival and about the Sorting Hat giving him the decided he didn't need help and was next to ginny, assuring her for the 200th time they would remain friends.

But then he faltered. He had so far avoided mentioning Riddle's diary — or Ginny. She was standing with her head against Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, and tears were still coursing silently down her cheeks. _What if they expelled her?_ Jamie thought in panic. Riddle's diary didn't work anymore… How could they prove it had been he who'd made her do it all?

Instinctively, Jamie looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing off his half-moon spectacles.

"What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently, "is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania."

Relief — warm, sweeping, glorious relief – swept over Jamie.

"W-what's that?" said Mr. Weasley in a stunned voice. "_You-Know-Who?_ En-enchant _Ginny?_But Ginny's not… Ginny hasn't been… has she?"

"It was this diary," said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. "Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen…"

Dumbledore took the diary from Harry and peered keenly down his long, crooked nose at its burnt and soggy pages.

"Brilliant," he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen."

He turned around to the Weasleys, who were looking utterly bewildered.

"Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle.

I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school… travelled far and wide… sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind,

underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable.

Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."

"I spat on him," Jamie announced proudly. This was almost to much for Minnie, who collapsed in a chair.

"But, Ginny," said Mrs. Weasley. "What's our Ginny got to do with — with — _him?_"

"His d-diary" Ginny sobbed. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year —"

"_Ginny!_" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "Haven't I taught you _anything?_What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself _if you can't see where it keeps its brain._

Why didn't you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was _clearly_full of Dark Magic!'

"I d-didn't know," sobbed Ginny. "I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it —"

"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away," Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. "This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment.

Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort."

He strode over to the door and opened it. "Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up," he added, twinkling kindly down at her. "You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake."

"There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny," said Dumbledore.

Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr. Weasley followed, still looking deeply shaken.

"You know, Minerva," Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Professor McGonagall, "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?"

"Right," said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door. "I'll leave you to deal with potter, Potter and Weasley, shall I?"

"Certainly," said Dumbledore.

She left, and Jamie, Harry and Ron gazed uncertainly at Dumbledore. What exactly had Professor McGonagall meant, _deal_with them? Surely — _surely_ — they weren't about to be punished?

"I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more school rules," said Dumbledore.

Ron opened his mouth in horror.

"Which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words," Dumbledore went on, smiling.

"You will all receive Special Awards for Services to the School and — let me see — yes, I think two hundred points apiece for Gryffindor."

Ron went as brightly pink as Lockhart's valentine flowers and closed his mouth again.

"But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this dangerous adventure," Dumbledore added. "Why so modest, Gilderoy?"

Jamie gave a start. She had completely forgotten about Lockhart.

She turned and saw that Lockhart was standing in a corner of the room, still wearing his vague smile. When Dumbledore addressed him, Lockhart looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to.

"Professor Dumbledore," Ron said quickly, "there was an accident down in the Chamber of Secrets. Professor Lockhart —"

"Am I a professor?" said Lockhart in mild surprise. "Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?"

"truest word he ever spoke." Jamie said grinning.(Ron had told her what had happened to him.)

"He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired," Ron explained quietly to Dumbledore.

"Dear me," said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver mustache quivering. "Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!"

"Sword?" said Lockhart dimly. "Haven't got a sword. That boy has, though." He pointed at Harry. "He'll lend you one."

"Would you mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the infirmary, too?" Dumbledore said to Ron.

"I'd like a few more words with Harry and Jamie…"

Lockhart ambled out. Ron cast a curious look back at Dumbledore Jamie, and Harry as he closed the door.

Dumbledore crossed to one of the chairs by the fire.

"Sit down, both of you," he said, and Harry sat, feeling unaccountably nervous, Jamie sat as well, somehow still feeling what he was, but not as strong as in the chamber.

"First of all, Harry, I want to thank you," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. "You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you."

He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee. Harry grinned awkwardly as Dumbledore watched him.

"And so you met Tom Riddle," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "I imagine he was most interested in you…"

Suddenly, something that was nagging at Harry came tumbling out of his mouth.

"Professor Dumbledore…Riddle said I'm like him. Strange likenesses, he said…"

"_Did_ he, now?" said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from under his thick silver eyebrows. "And what do you think, Harry?"

"I don't think I'm like him!" said Harry, more loudly than he'd intended. "I mean, I'm — I'm in _Gryffindor_, I'm…"

"Professor," he started again after a moment. "The Sorting Hat told me I'd — I'd have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin's heir for a while… because I can speak Parseltongue…"

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry and you too Jamie," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort— who _is_ the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin — can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to both of you the night he gave you those scars. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure…"

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Jamie said, thunderstruck.

"It certainly seems so."

"So I _should_ be in Slytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore's face. "The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin's power in me, and it —"

"Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly. "Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students.

His own very rare gift, Parseltongue —

resourcefulness — determination— a certain disregard for rules," he added, his mustache quivering again.

"Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think."

"It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "because I asked not to go in Slytherin…"

"_Exactly_," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you _very different_from Tom Riddle.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. "If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at _this._"

Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall's desk, picked up the blood-stained Red sword,

and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt.

_Gedric Gryffindor _

"Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled Gryffindor's son's sword out of the hat, as well as his Daughter's and his own out of the hat," said Dumbledore simply. He handed Jamie the golden sword, and she saw that it said.

_Galinda Gryffindor_

For a minute, neither of them spoke.

Then Jamie said," Professor, when we were in the chamber, I think we developed a strange connection. I could feel what Harry felt and could tell the gist of his thoughts and I think it worked both ways. Even now it's still here, just muted."

"Yeah," said Harry," and everything was a slight bit of color around it, almost like an" he struggled to find the right word, so Jamie said," aura, right, but couldn't you see that before?"

"You can see auras?" Dumbledore questioned.

"Yes," said Jamie, puzzled," can't everyone?"

"No it is an unusual gift, but whether it is voldemort's or not we may never know."

Then Dumbledore pulled open one of the drawers in Professor McGonagall's desk and took out a quill and a bottle of ink.

"What you need, is some food and sleep. I suggest you both go down to the feast, while I write to Azkaban —we need our gamekeeper back.

And I must draft an advertisement for the Daily Prophet, too," he added thoughtfully. "We'll be needing a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher… Dear me, we do seem to run through them, don't we?"

They got up and crossed to the door. Harry had just reached for the handle, however, when the door burst open so violently that it bounced back off the wall.

Lucius Malfoy stood there, fury in his face. And cowering behind his legs, heavily wrapped in bandages, was _Dobby_.

"Good evening, Lucius," said Dumbledore pleasantly.

Mr. Malfoy almost knocked Harry over as he swept into the room.

Dobby went scurrying in after him, crouching at the hem of his cloak, a look of abject terror on his face.

The elf was carrying a stained rag with which he was attempting to finish cleaning Mr. Malfoys shoes. Apparently Mr. Malfoy had set out in a great hurry, for not only were his shoes half-polished, but his usually sleek hair was dishevelled.

Ignoring the elf bobbing apologetically around his ankles, he fixed his cold eyes upon Dumbledore.

"So!" he said "You've come back. The governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts."

"Well, you see, Lucius," said Dumbledore, smiling serenely, "the other eleven governors contacted me today. It was something like being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell the truth.

They'd heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been killed and wanted me back here at once.

They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me, too… Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place."

Mr. Malfoy went even paler than usual,

but his eyes were still slits of fury.

"So — have you stopped the attacks yet?" he sneered. "Have you caught the culprit?"

"We have," said Dumbledore, with a smile.

"_Well?_" said Mr. Malfoy sharply. "Who is it?"

"The same person as last time, Lucius," said Dumbledore. "But this time, Lord Voldemort was acting through somebody else. By means of this diary."

He held up the small black book with the large hole through the center, watching Mr. Malfoy closely. Harry, and Jamie, however, were watching Dobby.

The elf was doing something very odd. His great eyes fixed meaningfully on them, he kept pointing at the diary, then at Mr. Malfoy, and then hitting himself hard on the head with his fist. Malfoy's dad had given Ginny the journal because he didn't like Mr. Weasley! Jamie began to shake with rage, and her face began to turn red. Harry, due to the connection, had figured it out as well, and he stared in horror at mr. Malfoy. Jamie had full on loathing aimed, and her aura was expanding, joining with Harry's, and the second the auras connected, the connection from the Chamber came back full force, but it was different, and suddenly, she could hear Harry's voice in her head.

_I can't believe he did that_

_Harry, We need to get him out of the room before we do something we regret._

neither of them thought anything weird of it. That was just what they could do.

"I see…" said Mr. Malfoy slowly to Dumbledore.

"A clever plan," said Dumbledore in a level voice, still staring Mr. Malfoy straight in the eye.

"Because if Harry here" — Mr. Malfoy shot Harry a swift, sharp look — "Jamie, and their friend Ron hadn't discovered this book, why — Ginny Weasley might have taken all the blame. No one would ever have been able to prove she hadn't acted of her own free will…"

Mr. Malfoy said nothing. His face was suddenly masklike.

"And imagine," Dumbledore went on, "what might have happened then… The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families.

Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns… Very fortunate the diary was discovered, and Riddle's memories wiped from it.

Who knows what the consequences might have been otherwise…"

Mr. Malfoy forced himself to speak.

"Very fortunate," he said stiffly.

"Don't you want to know how Ginny got hold of that diary, Mr. Malfoy?" said Harry.

Lucius Malfoy rounded on him.

"How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it?" he said.

"Because you gave it to her," said Jamie, angrier than she thought she had ever been. "In Flourish and Blotts. You picked up her old Transfiguration book and slipped the diary inside it, didn't you?"

She saw Mr. Malfoy's white hands clench and unclench.

"Prove it," he hissed.

"Oh, no one will be able to do that," said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry. "Not now that Riddle has vanished from the book. On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go giving out any more of Lord Voldemort's old school things.

If any more of them find their way into innocent hands, I think Arthur Weasley, for one, will make sure they are traced back to you…"

Lucius Malfoy stood for a moment, and Jamie distinctly saw his right hand twitch as though he was longing to reach for his wand.

Instead, he turned to his house-elf. "We're going, Dobby!"

He wrenched open the door and as the elf came hurrying up to him, he kicked him right through it.

They could hear Dobby squealing with pain all the way along the corridor.

Harry stood for a moment, thinking hard. Then it came to him — and in turn Jamie

"Professor Dumbledore," he said hurriedly. "Can I give that diary _back_ to Mr. Malfoy, please?"

"Certainly, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly. "But hurry. The feast, remember…"

Harry grabbed the diary and dashed out of the office, Jamie following. She could hear Dobby's squeals of pain receding around the corner. Quickly, wondering if this plan could possibly work, Harry took off one of his shoes, pulled off his slimy, filthy sock, and stuffed the diary into it. Then they ran down the dark corridor, still connected, running in complete sync.

"Mr. Malfoy," he gasped, skidding to a halt, "I've got something for you —"

And he forced the smelly sock into Lucius Malfoy's hand.

"What the —?"

Mr. Malfoy ripped the sock off the diary, threw it aside, then looked furiously from the ruined book to Harry. "You'll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, Harry Potter," he said softly.

"They were meddlesome fools, too."

He turned to go.

"Come, Dobby. I said, _come_."

But Dobby didn't move. He was holding up Harry's disgusting, slimy sock, and looking at it as though it were a priceless treasure.

"Master has given a sock," said the elf in wonderment. "Master gave it to Dobby."

"What's that?" spat Mr. Malfoy. "What did you say?"

"Got a sock," said Dobby in disbelief. "Master threw it, and Dobby caught it, and Dobby —Dobby is free."

Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf then he lunged at Harry.

"You've lost me my servant, boy!"

But Dobby shouted, "You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

There was a loud bang, and Mr. Malfoy was thrown backward.

He crashed down the stairs, three at a time, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing below.

He got up, his face livid, and pulled out his wand, but Dobby raised a long, threatening finger.

"You shall go now," he said fiercely, pointing down at Mr. Malfoy. "You shall not touch any Potter. You shall go now."

Lucius Malfoy had no choice. With a last, incensed stare at the pair of them, he swung his cloak around him and hurried out of sight.

"Harry Potter freed Dobby!" said the elf shrilly, gazing up at Harry, moonlight from the nearest window reflected in his orb-like eyes. "Harry Potter set Dobby free!"

"Least I could do, Dobby," said Harry, grinning.

"Just promise never to try and save my life again."

The elf's ugly brown face split suddenly into a wide, toothy smile.

"I've just got one question, Dobby,"

said Harry as Dobby pulled on Harry's sock with shaking hands. "You told me all this had nothing to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, remember? Well —"

"It was a clue, sir," said Dobby, his eyes widening, as though this was obvious. "Was giving you a clue. The Dark Lord, before he changed his name, could be freely named, you see?"

"Right," said Harry weakly. "Well, I'd better go. There's a feast…"

Dobby threw his arms around Harry's middle and hugged him.

"Harry Potter is greater by far than Dobby knew!" he sobbed. "Farewell, Harry Potter!"

And with a final loud crack, Dobby disappeared.

Jamie had been to several Hogwarts feasts, but never one quite like this.

Everybody was in their pajamas, and the celebration lasted all night.

Jamie didn't know whether the second best bit was Hermione running toward them, screaming "You solved it! You solved it!"

or Justin hurrying over from the Hufflepuff table to wring. her hand and apologize endlessly for suspecting her,

or Hagrid turning up at half past three, cuffing Harry and Ron so hard on the shoulders that they were knocked into their plates of trifle,

or her'shis and Ron's four hundred points for Gryffindor securing the House Cup for the second year running,

or Professor McGonagall standing up to tell them all that the exams had been cancelled as a school treat ("Oh, no!" said Hermione),

or Dumbledore announcing that, unfortunately, Professor Lockhart would be unable to return next year, owing to the fact that he needed to go away and get his memory back.

Quite a few of the teachers joined in the cheering that greeted this news.

"Shame," said Ron, helping himself to a jam doughnut. "He has starting to grow on me."

But one of the best was Dumbledore's announcement that the record for most detentions in a year had been broken by one Miss. Jamie Potter, with 263 detentions, beating the previous record of 173 set by one James Potter.

The rest of the final term passed in a haze of blazing sunshine. Hogwarts was back to normal with only a few, small differences — Defence Against the Dark Arts classes were cancelled ("but we've had plenty of practice at that anyway," Ron told a disgruntled Hermione)

and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor.

Draco was no longer strutting around the school as though he owned the place.

On the contrary, he looked resentful and sulky.

On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again.

Too soon, it was time for the journey home on the Hogwarts Express.

Jamie Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Ginny got their favorite back compartment to themselves. They made the most of the last few hours in which they were allowed to do magic before the holidays.

They played Exploding Snap, set off the very last of Fred and George's Filibuster fireworks,

and practiced disarming each other by magic. Harry was getting very good at it.

They were almost at King's Cross when Harry remembered something.

"Ginny – what did you see Percy doing, that he didn't want you to tell anyone?"

"Oh, that," said Ginny, giggling. "Well — Percy's got a _girlfriend_." Fred dropped a stack of books on George's head.

"_What?_"

"It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater," said Ginny.

"That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them _kissing_ in an empty classroom one day.

He was so upset when she was —you know — attacked. You won't tease him, will you?" she added anxiously.

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Fred, who was looking like his birthday had come early.

"Definitely not," said George, sniggering.

"I wish i could," sighed Jamie.

The Hogwarts Express slowed and finally stopped.

Harry pulled out his quill and a bit of parchment and turned to Ron and Hermione.

"This is called a telephone number," he told Ron, scribbling it twice, tearing the parchment in two, and handing it to them.

"I told your dad how to use a telephone last summer — he'll know. Call me at the Dursleys', okay?

I can't stand another two months with only Jamie and Dudley to talk to…"

"Your aunt and uncle will be proud, though, won't they?" said Hermione as they got off the train and joined the crowd thronging toward the enchanted barrier.

"When they hear what you did this year?"

"Proud?" said Jamie. "Are you crazy?

All those times I could've died, and I didn't manage it? They'll be furious…"

And together they walked back through the gateway to the Muggle world.


End file.
